


A Six-Leaf Clover

by moonlightrichie



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Descriptions of nausea and throwing up, Fluff, Growing Up, Homophobia, I'll tag as I write, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, besties eddie and bill, besties richie and stan, i also don't know how kids act, i don't know how to tag, i tried to google what i could, it's gonna be real cute, no pennywise, richie's parents are the BEST, they meet when they're 5 and become such good friends, this entire fic is inspired by different kaizers orchestra songs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-04-07 13:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19085959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlightrichie/pseuds/moonlightrichie
Summary: Richie loves doing magic tricks and Eddie loves to dream, and as they grow older they come to understand that nothing will ever be more magical than the two of them dreaming together.A Reddie growing-up AU





	1. Shining Like Silver

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi-chaptered fic, and I'm super duper excited about it !! (And also super duper nervous)

_“You can be in my dream if I get to be in yours”_

 

 

Derry, Maine, was a boring town. The people were boring, the houses were boring and the different places were boring. The brick walls in the alleys were colorless, the park grass was as far from green as it possibly could be and all picket fences around the neighborhoods were peeling off boring white paint.

As little Eddie Kaspbrak was staring out his bedroom window, all he could feel was a deep and heavy ache in his bones. His fingers were itching, his legs were bouncing, and his breath was coming out in constant huffs, his body simply longing to just do _something_. It wanted to jump, wanted to kick and climb and roll around. And most importantly, it wanted to _run_.

Oh, how it loved to run.

The feeling of wind pushing against his face, hair swept backwards, lungs burning inside his chest. Feeling his knees ache from the pressure of his feet harshly hitting the ground with every step. Muscles producing masses of lactic acid, pain coursing through his legs. Keeping on just to see how much his body could take, pushing it to its limit. Falling to the ground to catch his breath, thighs on fire and sweat collecting by his hairline, a sense of achievement bubbling inside of him.

Nothing could compare.

But despite his wishes, he could only shake his head. No matter how much his body wanted it, _needed_ it, it didn’t really matter. He couldn’t just go outside to jump, climb and roll around, especially not run. His Ma had told him so.

_You’re so delicate, my Eddie-bear, you’ll hurt yourself._

Before he even knew he wasn’t supposed to do any of those things, there had been no stopping him. But then his Ma had started rambling about sickness and even though most of the words she used were confusing, he’d boiled it down to two things.

The first thing was his breathing. Apparently there was something wrong with it, and exactly what that meant he didn’t understand. The second was that he wasn’t allowed to play in the grass too much, because he also had something called allergies. He didn’t really understand what that meant either. But what he did know was that running was a no-no.

He missed it a whole lot.

There were close to no toys in their house, only a couple teddies and a simple buildable train set. When he had turned five he had gotten a pack of Legos from his aunt. His Ma had let him play with it for about three weeks before he’d accidentally stepped on one of the smallest pieces and started wailing his little heart out. When she had come rushing to his aid in panic and seen him clutching his foot in the surprised pain, she had happily thrown it away.

He’d adapted to the indoor life, as it was where he spent most of his time. Dreams and fantasies were his way of living how he wanted, and putting them down in colors was one of his favorite things.

Eddie picked up the blue crayon he had used to color the sky and continued filling in around the yellow beams of sunlight on the paper. Outside it was drizzling, no sunshine peeking through the barrier of clouds, the complete opposite of his drawing. He liked to imagine the weather being bright and colorful instead of the gloomy grayness he was looking at from his window. His reality was boring, but in his dreams he was running around in the green grass with the sun gleaming in his eyes.

Sometimes he wished he could bury his dreams. Dig a big hole in the garden and put them all down there to save, like a dog with their bone. Save his dreams and dig them up when he was ready to pursue them.

Eddie wondered if flowers would grow from that soil. They would be like dream flowers. He smiled at the thought.

A small decorative box was hidden under his bed. In it he stored all his drawings and scribbles, all his dreams, and it was good enough for now. There were drawings of wishes and hopes, of the sky and the moon and the stars, of the grass and the flowers, of trains and cars and planes. Everything he loved was gathered in there like a little chest of dreams. Dreams of all the things he wished to do, of the things he adored, of everything he wanted to explore. Dreams of something more than the ugly gray wallpaper staring back at him from his bedroom walls.

It was like he was living in a constant state of dreaming. Getting bored was easy when he was at home, his wild imagination quick to lure him into daydreams. More than once his Ma had snapped her fingers in front of his face, getting worried and asking him if he wasn’t feeling well.

When he was with Bill on the other hand, zoning out rarely ever happened.

Bill was Eddie’s absolute best friend in the entire world. Sometimes he couldn’t even believe how lucky he’d been to ever meet someone like him. Constantly being stuck inside the prison of his house, meeting other kids his age wasn’t normality to him.

Meeting Bill Denbrough was simply one of the most important parts of Eddie’s life.

It had been one of his Ma’s good days, one of those days where she seemed to actually be happy. When Eddie had woken up with the sun shining into his eyes through his bedroom window, he had only needed to ask twice to go outside before she had said yes. Momentarily she had even forgotten about his allergies as she had lain in the shadow of a tree in the park, Eddie running around and picking flowers. Every once in a while he’d put his little bouquet in a pile next to her before running off again to find more.

And then came a boy with auburn hair, a daisy in his hand and a toothy grin on his face.

“Duh-do you wuh-want this?” He’d asked, stretching out his hand with the pretty flower for Eddie to take. Staring wide-eyed at the boy, Eddie had only nodded his head before shyly reaching out to take the daisy.

That day was a day Eddie would like to remember forever, as it was one of the best he’d ever had. Not only because of his first meeting with Bill, but also because of the smile that had appeared on his Ma’s face when he’d returned with a wonky flower crown that Bill had taught him how to make for her.

Living in the same street, they had hung out plenty after that. Even though Bill went to preschool while Eddie didn’t, meaning he definitely had plenty other friends, Bill had still been the first of them to say the two of them were best friends.

There was never a boring moment with Bill, and with that thought, Eddie put down his crayon, jumped out of his chair and ran downstairs to his Ma.

“Careful not to trip, Eddie-Bear”, she stressed.

“Can I go to Bill’s?” he asked excitedly.

She slowly leaned forward to press mute on her show before turning around in the chair to look at her five-year-old son. “But I’m making dinner soon.”

“Please, Ma”, he begged, almost on the edge of whining. From past experience he had learned that usually only made her mad, but he couldn’t help it this time. He felt desperate.

She pursed her lips for a few moments, studying his face. Giving her his best puppy-eyes, he smiled timidly and she sighed before nodding her head. “Tell Mrs. Denbrough that you have to be home by five.”

“Home by five”, he repeated, holding up his hand and counting his five fingers. “Thanks, Ma!”

She helped him put on his galoshes and red raincoat, and a couple minutes later he was skipping down the road towards Bill’s house. It wasn’t even really raining, just a small drizzle, the humid air surrounding him as he swung his arms back and forth. A small drop of rain hit his nose, and he lifted his face up to the sky with his eyes closed. The squelching sound of his feet hitting the ground echoed through the empty street, the smell of wet dirt filling his nostrils, and he smiled happily to himself.

He looked down the street, only then noticing that something was different from what he was used to in this boring town. Only a couple more houses down, was a big truck, the biggest Eddie had ever seen. He released a small gasp, practically sprinting over to get a better look at it because Eddie _loved_ trucks.

“Wow”, he whispered to himself.

It was probably a billion times bigger than him, and with wide eyes he started to curiously walk around it. The wheels were massive, almost as tall as he was, and he couldn’t even reach up to grab the door handle. He rounded the corner of the truck to see what the front of it looked like, all his other surroundings disappearing in his astonishment of this gigantic vehicle.

“Hi!”

An energetic voice cut through the silence, and Eddie jumped at the sound. Looking around frantically, his gaze finally landed on a boy sitting on the sidewalk. With red curly hair and a pale freckled face, he smiled widely at Eddie. In his hand he held a blue lollipop and over his shoulders clung a dark green puffer jacket.

But what caught Eddie’s attention was the heart-shaped sunglasses with pink frames perked on the tip of his nose. With the sun hidden away behind the clouds, it didn’t make any sense to Eddie why someone would be wearing _sunglasses_.

He smiled shyly. “Hello.”

The boy stood up, taking a quick step towards Eddie. “I’m Richie, what’s your name?”

Eddie fumbled for his words, caught off guard for a moment. The boy spoke much too loudly for standing so close. “Eddie.”

“Are you five too?”

He nodded his head, holding up his hand, all fingers stretched out to represent his age.

“Fun!” the boy, Richie, exclaimed. “I just moved here with my mom and my dad!”

“Oh!” Eddie raved. If that meant what he thought it did, that would mean that Richie was new and didn’t know anybody yet. Eddie grinned. “We can be friends if you want!”

Richie’s face lit up immediately. “Really?”

Eddie nodded. “I also have a best friend, Bill. We can all be friends!”

“What do you play?” Richie asked.

Eddie pondered for a few moments. “We like swinging on swings and play tag. Oh! And hide and seek is fun. And also sometimes we pick flowers or we play house, but Bill doesn’t like house that much anymore.”

“That’s all fun!” Richie yelled.

Eddie giggled, a smile way too big for his face forcing its way onto his lips. “I like your sunglasses.” He pointed to Richie’s face.

Richie stepped closer and Eddie stared in wonder as he reached up to pull them off, revealing a pair of glittering brown eyes.

“Do you want to try them?” He asked, stretching out his hand towards Eddie.

Eddie nodded before taking them, cradling the glasses carefully in his hands in fear of doing any damage. His fingers stroked the pink frames lightly and the sight of such a bright color made something bubble inside of his stomach. It was the total opposite of the boring gray he was so used to. He placed the glasses onto his nose, letting the world around him be enveloped in darkness.

“If you want, you can have them”, Richie insisted. “I have another pair that’s green and shaped like stars.” He put his lollipop between his lips, settling it into the right side of his mouth. It created a lump poking out of his cheek and Eddie thought it looked kind of weird.

He smiled widely at Richie, showing his teeth. “Thanks.”

“We can wear them together.”

Eddie noticed that Richie’s lips were stained blue from the lolly, and Eddie wondered if his tongue was too. _Colorful boy_ , Eddie thought. He wanted to draw him sometime.

“We can wear them together”, he agreed.

“My dad says I might need glasses, but I already have my green ones so I don’t understand what he means”, Richie said, rambling. Eddie noticed that his tongue was indeed blue. “If I have to get more glasses then I want red ones. Heart-shaped because I don’t have that anymore.”

“Hearts are pretty”, Eddie approved. He preferred stars though.

A moment of silence settled comfortably between the two of them, both smiling widely at each other.

“Do you want to come inside to play? I have cars.” Richie’s smile was absolutely blinding. _Just like the sun_ , Eddie noted. _He’s like the sun._

And Eddie liked the sun a lot.

Remembering that he had actually been on his way to Bill, he had to stop for a second to think. As long as he was back home by five like his Ma had said, it probably didn’t matter where he’d been. It felt like nothing was more important than becoming friends with this boy.

And Eddie also _really_ loved playing with cars.

“Okay”, he finally answered.

Jumping towards him, Richie took Eddie’s hand, threading their fingers together before dragging him to the house.

A woman was just walking out the front door when the two boys stepped onto the porch. In a beautiful blue sundress and her dark hair pulled back, she jumped slightly as she caught sight of them. “Oh!” She blinked a couple of times before her eyes settled on Eddie, a warm smile taking over her shocked expression. “Hi there!”

Meeting adults was always much more intimidating than meeting kids and he closed in on himself a little, shoulders slouching. “Hello”, he mumbled, trying for a tiny smile while seeking shelter behind Richie’s shoulder.

“This is Eddie!” Riche announced.

The woman looked at Eddie with kind eyes, and he dared to stand straighter.

“Well, hi Eddie, it’s nice to meet you”, she said kindly. “I’m Maggie.”

Eddie assumed this was Richie’s mom, and he smiled shyly in response.

“We’re going to play with my cars”, Richie continued, ready to start for the entrance.

“Oh! Hold on, Richie, darling." She turned around to poke her head back into the house. “Went, honey? Do you know if the box with Richie’s toys is unloaded from the moving truck yet?”

A tall man stepped up from behind Richie’s mom, glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t think so.” He looked down at the two boys, eyebrows lifting when he noticed Eddie.

“What are you boys up to?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“We’re on a mission from God”, Richie said, voice changing into a gravelly deeper timbre, not sounding like him anymore. Eddie looked over in confusion.

The man in the door laughed out loud. “Ah, I’m so glad you picked up that one, Rich.”

“Richie and his new friend Eddie want to play with cars”, Richie’s mom said, a spark of happiness in her eyes.

“We wanna play with the cars!” Richie echoed, jumping slightly.

The man nodded, a smile taking over his features at his son’s eagerness. “Well, I’ll go get the box from the truck then.” Eddie looked in astonishment as the man walked passed them and started towards the massive truck. He tugged at Richie’s hand.

“Do you think I could look inside the truck?” he whispered so only Richie could hear.

Richie looked at him for a few moments before turning his head to look over at the vehicle standing on the road. “Sure!” Richie said, eyes lighting up. “Dad? Can Eddie look inside the truck?”

As Richie’s dad looked over at them, gaze landing on Eddie with a smile on his face, Eddie stepped closer to Richie for protectiveness. Richie looked at him reassuringly and squeezed his hand, and Eddie felt safe. This boy was good at making him feel safe.

“Of course! You boys come on over!” He yelled, motioning at them with his arm.

Eddie smiled so wide his cheeks hurt and Richie tugged at his arm, dragging Eddie with him. The truck seemed to grow in size as they made their way to it. Either that or Eddie was getting smaller.

“It’s so big”, he muttered quietly as they stepped up next to Richie’s dad. And it really was. It was even bigger than the yellow school bus he’d seen riding down the street sometimes. He was excited about stepping onto that bus for the first time in a few months. Hopefully he could sit in the front and watch the driver steer the wheel and turn it all the way around the corners.

“Yeah, it is”, Richie’s dad confirmed with a nod, putting his hands on his hips. “You boys ready to see inside?”

“Yeah!” Richie yelled. Eddie echoed him more silently.

Then the big metal door was pulled up and a massive space came into view. It was filled with big brown boxes and furniture. A couch, several chairs and tables, bookcases and dressers, all wrapped up in plastic.

“It’s like a room!” Eddie extolled, the amazement he felt overshadowing his wariness of the adult present, making him forget to be nervous.

“A moving room!” Richie added.

Eddie gasped at the thought and Richie’s dad chuckled at them.

“Can you see which of these boxes has your toys, Rich?” he asked, pointing at the cardboard boxes displayed messily on top of each other. Scribbles were written on each one, and Eddie tried confusedly to understand what they might say, but he hadn’t learned to read properly yet. Only letters and a few words were of his knowledge. His Ma had taught him to write and read his own name as well as words like ‘moon’ and ‘sun’. Every drawing in his dream chest had a title scribbled on top, all words he had requested of his Ma to teach him.

He had one titled ‘Sunny Flowers’ where he’d drawn small yellow suns on top of flower stems instead of the petals. They all had smiley faces inside of them because the sun always made him smile.

But then Richie pointed excitedly at one of the boxes to the right. “That one!”

Eddie let out an impressed gasp as Richie’s dad nodded his head and stepped up into the truck to pick it up.

“That’s right, champ!”

“You know how to read that well?” Eddie asked, mouth slightly open.

Richie’s dad put the box down onto the asphalt of the road and ruffled Richie’s hair. “Smart boy we’ve got.”

A proud grin made it’s way onto Richie’s face, all crooked teeth and bright eyes. The sight made Eddie warm inside, warming him up just like the sunshine did.

“Why don’t you boys wait inside and I’ll bring this box up to your room, Richie?”

The two of them skipped up the path back to the entrance where Richie’s mom had been watching them on the porch. As Eddie stepped into the unfamiliar house, he pushed the heart-shaped sunglasses onto the top of his head and looked around. He had never seen a house so vacant of furniture and paintings on the walls; it was almost completely empty. The fact that it was so uncluttered made the space seem so much bigger, and he knew as soon as Richie's parents had finished decorating, it would feel a whole lot smaller. He was always stumbling over things in his own house, making him feel like a giant sometimes.

“We’ve already laid down your racetrack carpet in your room. Do you remember where it is?” she asked.

“Yes, mom”, Richie said, tugging on Eddie’s arm to follow him upstairs.

Then Eddie remembered what his Ma had said, and he stopped halfway up the staircase. “Wait”, he whispered to Richie before turning around and looking at Richie’s mom timidly. “My Ma says I have to be home by five.”

She looked confused for a moment, seeming to try to understand where Eddie was going with that and waiting for him to continue. His brain started going over how to explain, but it struggled and his heart started speeding up a little bit. He had never had to explain how time was confusing to him. Mrs. Denbrough always understood what he meant. But then she raised her eyebrows, finally knowing. "Oh! Right!” She nodded, smiling reassuringly. “Where do you live?”

He breathed out as quietly as he could, stress draining out of him with it. “Some houses down there.” He pointed in the direction of his house.

Time wasn’t something he was very good at yet. For all he knew five minutes could mean the same as 15 minutes. He just needed an adult to keep track of the time for him. There were some evenings where he would be watching a cartoon and his Ma would tell him it was time for bed. Usually he managed to whine his way into ‘ _five more minutes_ ’, but for him that didn’t really mean anything. All he knew was he got to watch the cartoon for a little while longer. If she said ’ _15 more minutes_ ’ he would have expected just the same.

“Okay, I’ll come upstairs to let you know when it’s time to leave.” she said, making Eddie smile brightly.

“Thank you.” Then he turned back to Richie and the two of them continued up the stairs.

Just like the downstairs, Richie’s room was fairly empty except for a bed, a toy basket and the racetrack carpet. The room’s personality had yet to shine through with its empty walls and vacant spaces. Eddie’s walls were covered in drawings and pictures of flowers that his Ma had hung up for him, and most of the surfaces and shelves were covered in stuff like his cassette player, toys and jigsaw puzzles. Every night he would go to bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers hanging in the ceiling and his bunny night lamp lighting up the room. All of him was put on display in there, and he couldn’t wait to see Richie’s personality translated into his own room.

The two of them stepped through the door.

“Your room is so big”, Eddie commented.

“It’s much bigger than my last room.”

Richie had bitten off the remaining chunk of his lollipop, the blue candy looking like tiny pieces of glass between his teeth. Eddie scrunched his nose up at the noisy sound.

Then he noticed Richie’s bedding. Tiny green clovers covered the entirety of the comforter and pillow. Eddie himself enjoyed flowers a whole ton, but the fascination for the boring green leaves wasn’t something he could quite understand. It was the blossoming pedals and the different colors that drew his attention, not the stem. These small clovers were most likely something Richie liked, as Eddie himself had bedding with stars on them. He walked over to it and put his hand on the comforter, barely covering one of the leafy plants. “I like this.”

“That’s four-leaf clovers. My mom says they bring luck.”

“Wow.” Eddie didn’t know that. He’d have to include four-leaf clovers in his next flower crown. The two of them sat down on the racetrack carpet.

“Most clovers have three, but if you find one with four, it means you’re lucky.” Richie smiled. “I also have a picture of them that I’m gonna hang on my wall! And I’m going to put all my cars and toys in that basket, and my dad is going to put up some shelves where I can put my magic stuff.”

That peeked Eddie’s curiosity. From what he knew about magic it was something only wizards or witches could do, and his brain struggled to understand what kind of stuff Richie had that were magic. He envisioned sparkles and cauldrons with green smoke coming from them, and he shuddered.

“Magic stuff?” he asked carefully.

“Yeah! I love magic so I have lots of that stuff!” Richie didn’t seem to notice Eddie’s hesitation.

“But don’t you have to be a wizard to do magic?” He asked.

Richie stopped for a moment, thinking. “No, it’s a different kind of magic.” His head cocked to the side, eyes narrowing in confliction. “My dad calls them illusions.”

“Illusions? What’s that?”

“Like, you’ve seen those card tricks? Where you pick a card and then someone guesses what card you picked?”

Eddie nodded his head. He thought he might have seen something like that on the television at some point.

“I think it means that it looks like it’s magic, but it’s just a trick. So it’s not real magic”, Richie explained.

“Not real?”

“Yeah! It’s tricks.”

Completely fascinated Eddie listened with wide eyes. Never had he thought it was possible to do magic tricks that weren’t actually magic.

“I have lots of stuff”, Richie continued. “Lots of cards and a wand and a top hat, and I also got a plush rabbit that I pretend to pull out of the hat! I even have a moneybox with a little window so you can look inside it, but when you put coins into the little hole, it looks like the money disappears. It’s cool!”

“Wow.” Eddie was in awe.

“I’ll show you all of it sometime.” Richie bounced slightly, clearly excited about sharing his magic with Eddie.

Happiness blossomed inside of his chest, and Eddie smiled brightly, looking forward to see Richie doing magic tricks. “Okay.”

“What about you?” Richie leaned back on the palms of his hands, blue-stained lips pushed together.

Compared to Richie’s love for magic, Eddie felt like he didn’t have much exciting things to offer. For so long, he had thought the town was too boring for him, but for the first time ever, he thought maybe _he_ was too boring. This new friend seemed to be everything this town missed, all smiles, colors and magic.

“I like cars”, he started carefully, the need to impress Richie sitting strong inside of his chest. “And I like the sun and the moon. And flowers.”

“That’s neat.”

Eddie thought about Richie’s magic and how he had said it wasn’t real. Reality had never really been Eddie's favorite place, and in a way he knew that most things that weren’t real were what he found joy in. His dreams, those weren’t real. If Richie also found joy in something that wasn’t real, there was nothing wrong with Eddie doing the same.

“Dreams”, he blurted. “I like dreams.”

Richie looked at him in confusion. “Dreams? Like when you sleep?”

“That too, but I like to dream about things while I’m awake”, Eddie continued, trying to explain.

“You can dream while you’re awake?” Richie leaned forward, interested now.

“It’s not quite the same. It’s like, I imagine myself running and I imagine the sun shining. They’re dreams I can control, I guess. And I make up stories in my head, and sometimes I draw them and put them in my dream chest.”

“But why dream of running when you can just run for real?” Richie asked.

Eddie had to stop to think about his answer. “It’s different, just like with your magic, it’s not real.”

“Not real…” Richie pondered for a few seconds, seeming to compare Eddie’s dreams to his magic.

“I’ll show you sometime.” Eddie smiled.

“Okay.”

The two of them smiled at each other. If Richie had his magic, then Eddie had his dreams, and Eddie smiled at the thought of the two of them sharing these parts of themselves to the other. It felt like a promise.

“Do you think I can be in one of your dreams?” Richie asked, shuffling closer until their knees touched.

Eddie felt warmth spread to his cheeks. The thought of Richie running next to him in his dreams made his heart pound, and he knew then that he would be dreaming of Richie a lot.

“You can be in my dream if I get to be in yours”, Eddie proposed.

Richie nodded his head excitedly, making Eddie giggle.

Then Richie’s dad walked into the room with a box of Richie’s toys, and the two of them cheered in celebration. They spent the next couple of hours playing with the cars, tooting and screaming as well as talking and laughing. Not only did they crash their cars into each other with vocalized explosion sounds, but they also crashed their shoulders together as if they were the cars themselves.

When Richie got bored with playing with the cars, they switched to drawing them instead. Eddie made a rainbow colored one, using every crayon Richie had while Richie made a red one with fire.

When Richie got bored with drawing, they sat down and talked on Richie’s bed about everything and nothing, and that’s how Maggie found them when she walked into the room ten minutes to five.

And when Eddie left, he left with a smile.

Both June and July passed with the snap of a finger, both months filled with sunlight, splashing in the rain and laughter. Eddie had introduced Richie to Bill, the two quickly becoming friends when they found out both of their favorite cereal was the Boo Berry Monster Cereal.

Eddie hated that one. He preferred Cheerios.

Richie and Eddie were having a sleepover when Eddie gave into one of Richie’s schemes for the first time. _The first of many to come._

It all started with two small words whispered into the August evening.

After two months of friendship, Eddie’s Ma had finally said yes to the two boys having a sleepover. At this point the summer vacation was coming to an end, kindergarten right around the corner, and Eddie was scared. His Ma had never let him go to daycare or preschool. She had insisted home with her was just as good for him, if not better.

There had been one day where Richie told him that he was scared too, being new in town and all, and that had calmed Eddie down a little.

“Hey, Eddie.”

The quiet whisper interrupted Eddie’s humming, and the room was cloaked with silence. It had been one of the colder summer nights, and drops of rain could be heard from outside the window. The two boys were sitting close together under the comforter on Richie’s bed, several four-leaf clovers staring Eddie in the face.

Richie’s mom had put them to bed a while ago, but the two of them had stayed up on Richie’s initiative. Managing to stay pretty quiet, they hadn’t been discovered quite yet. They had recently heard Richie’s parents go to bed, and Eddie could tell Richie had something planned just by the look on his face.

“Yeah?” Eddie responded, looking at his friend with big innocent eyes, studying his features. He knew the room was lit up by the moonlight from outside, but under the safety of the covers, he could barely make out Richie’s face in the darkness.

At first, Richie didn’t say anything. Instead he simply stared down at his hands, fiddling with his tiny thumbs. His lips were quirked upwards, face covered in mischief. And when he opened his mouth, Eddie had a feeling they were going to get in trouble.

“My parents hide candy in the kitchen. Let’s take some.”

Eddie gasped, knowing his Ma would kill him if he did something like that at home. They were in Richie’s house, but he couldn’t help feeling like stealing candy was a big deal. Then he remembered the sweet taste of chocolate, and he couldn’t find it in himself to care. There were few things he wouldn’t do to feel the melting sweet on his tongue.

He nodded and Richie took his hand like he always did, linking their fingers. They managed to get out of the room without making any loud noises, and with a hammering heart, Eddie felt a rush at the risk of getting caught.

They made it all the way to the top of the stairs, Richie pointing at the spots on the floor that made squeaky sounds. But then Richie tripped on his own feet, and if it hadn’t been for Eddie’s fast reaction, Richie would’ve fallen face first down the steps.

With his arms tied around Richie’s waist, he sighed in relief, letting his head fall onto Richie’s shoulder. He could feel Richie’s heavy breathing ghosting the tips of his hair, Richie’s heart thumping so loudly that Eddie could hear it. The rapid sound was mixing together with the beat of Eddie’s own heart.

They stood like that for a while, both feeling safe now that they were cuddled up together, neither of them ready to let go after their scare. Eddie had lost his appetite for chocolate, and was ready to get back in bed. The only thing he wanted was to be back under the comforter, protected in the shelter of Richie’s room.

But after a while, Richie took Eddie’s arms that were placed around his middle and locked their hands together once again. He was smiling genuinely this time, crooked teeth on full display, the two on top sticking out slightly. That was all it took for Eddie to join in of Richie’s mischiefs, bed once again forgotten with the excited sparkle in Richie’s eyes.

They continued their journey down the stairs, more careful this time, both holding onto the banister for dear life. At last, they finally made it to the kitchen. Richie was waving his arms around over his head, jumping silently in victory. Quickly joining in Eddie did the same, and the two of them danced all silly for a few moments.

Richie stopped, pointing at one of the cabinets in the kitchen and signaling for Eddie to stay quiet. They made their way over as silently as they could, careful not to knock anything over. Not before long, Richie had managed to climb onto the countertop with Eddie’s help and snatched the candy bag.

Their tiny feet echoed through the house as they ran back upstairs, giggles escaping their lips. The excitement of completing such a quest made it difficult to stay quiet, but none of them noticed.

As they finally made it back into Richie’s room, they were both covering their mouths to stifle the laughter. Eddie couldn’t believe they had made it without Richie’s parents hearing them. In a way it felt like they had just gotten away with the biggest crime in the world.

Richie dragged his comforter to the corner of the room, hidden behind his closet so if anybody were to walk inside they wouldn’t be seen. The bedroom window was also there, a lot of Richie’s knick-knacks collected in the frame. They pulled the comforter around them, their heads poking out and the candy settled between them.

Richie knocked over a couple things as he leaned his head against the window, his silhouette contrasting with the moonlight shining into the room. His new glasses were slipping down his nose every time he looked into the bag of sweets, fingers already covered in sugar.

They locked eyes, Eddie finding it hard to make out Richie’s expression. His magnified eyes seemed to look Eddie over before he leaned over to poke Eddie’s cheek.

“You’re shining”, Richie whispered.

For a moment neither of them said anything, Eddie staring at Richie with sour gummies half-chewed in his mouth. Carefully he placed his own hand on his face, trying to understand what Richie had meant. He must have looked confused because Richie continued before he could say anything.

“You’re shining”, he repeated. “Like silver.”

Eddie swallowed the candy carefully, still confused. Did he look gray like the rest of the town always did?

“What do you mean?” He asked, voice sounding wobbly.

“It’s the moon, making you look all silvery.”

“Oh.” Eddie smiled then. He liked the moon. Richie smiled too.

“You’re like one of those silver necklaces”, Richie said. “Like the ones my mom wears.

“Ma wears those too.”

“You can be my silver necklace”, Richie tittered while sticking a piece of wine gummy into his mouth and chewing loudly. “And I’ll wear you!”

Before Eddie could react, Richie was already leaning over Eddie, putting his head onto his shoulder. Grabbing Eddie’s arm, he wrapped it around his neck.

Eddie giggled at Richie’s ridiculousness, trying to push him away playfully. Richie’s grip on his arm just tightened and he pressed his head into Eddie’s face, fluffy hair tickling Eddie’s cheek. The two of them wrestled for a moment, gasping with hushed cackles. But then Eddie pulled his arm back with just too much force, hitting his elbow on the wall behind him. A loud bang echoed through the room, seeming much louder than it probably was in comparison to the silence that had laid itself in the Tozier house.

Both of them froze immediately, intently listening for any signs that Richie’s parents had woken up. But no sounds were to hear, and they breathed out in relief before erupting back into quiet laughter.

With Richie still leaning against him, Eddie had the full view of Richie’s pale face illuminated by the moonlight.

“You’re shining like silver too”, he murmured, pulling Richie closer to him by the grip he had around his shoulders. “’s pretty.” His voice had surpassed the quietness of a whisper, breathy words barely audible as they left his lips. But Richie heard, and he beamed up at Eddie, eyes big behind the lenses of his glasses. He reached up to boop Eddie’s nose, and Eddie smiled back just as wide.

Eddie felt like he was never _not_ smiling when he was with Richie.

Then Richie closed his eyes, snuggling into Eddie’s side, the comforter still enveloping them. Eddie looked outside at the moon, and then at Richie again, and felt a content smile make its way onto his face. Two of his favorite things were right in front of him to look at, and he got the urge to draw it.

_Richie and the moon._

It was like a dream, and Eddie wanted to put this in his dream chest to remember forever.

Richie had started breathing more evenly, and Eddie knew he had fallen asleep, lips pouty and face slack. Richie’s glasses were probably digging painfully into his nose, and Eddie reached down to remove them. They were a dark red and they brought out the chocolaty undertone of his curls. Only certain lighting could pick that up, and Eddie appreciated it while he could.

If he was being honest, the position he was in wasn’t the most ideal for a good night sleep, and he knew he’d suffer some troubles falling asleep sitting up. He dragged his tongue over his lips, remnants of sugar still coating them, and that’s when he remembered.

_We forgot to brush our teeth after eating the candy._

An uncomfortable feeling formed deep inside his gut, and he swallowed loudly, but an invisible lump had appeared in his throat.

_It’s important to brush your teeth, Eddie-bear, or they’ll get holes._

With fingers itching and his tongue constantly darting to his lips, panic started to grow in his chest. All he could feel was the extra layer of sweetness covering his teeth. It felt like stones were gathering in his lungs, breathing becoming an impossible task.

_Nightmare._

With hands clenching and unclenching, a single tear escaped his right eye. His teeth were dirty. He’d definitely wake up in the morning with brown holes to be found everywhere inside his mouth, he was sure.

Then a muffled grunt interrupted him, and his panicked movements stilled as he looked at Richie sleeping in his lap. Richie turned carefully, most of his torso on top of Eddie’s thighs.

Eddie placed a shaking hand on Richie’s upper-arm, feeling himself crash back into reality at the touch. Slowly, he managed to feel the pressure on his chest start to disappear, and breathing became easier at every intake. His thumb was stroking Richie’s skin, the motion calming him down. It was nice to feel something real beneath his fingertips. _Real._

A real dream. That was what he wanted. For his dreams to be real.

And no dream felt more important than a dream involving Richie.

_"You can be in my dreams if I get to be in yours."_


	2. You're My Flower Crown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie learns about kisses.

_"You're my art and you're my flower crown"  
_

 

 

Moving to Derry started out badly for Richie Tozier. Before moving, a lot of nights had been spent in tears on his mom’s lap and in anger locked inside his soon-to-be old room, yelling in protest whenever someone would knock on his door. His parents had tried explaining several times why they had to leave New York, all of the reasons being too complicated for his then four-year old brain to quite understand. But what he _did_ understand was that the home he had come to know and love wasn’t going to be home anymore.

They had kept showering him with encouraging words and telling him all of the positive sides of moving to Derry. How he’d get a bigger room, they would finally have a garden for him to play in and how he’d make tons of great new friends. It was good for him to grow up outside of the city, surrounded by trees and lakes in a place where the residency had a good connection.

Always being a very open and honest child, there was no hiding how he felt. Sadness, anger, hurt, excitement or happiness, whatever it was, he would talk to them about it. He’d been like that ever since he could talk, and in some ways even before that too; babbles in an incoherent baby-language (“what d’ya got there?”, “ga-ga goo-goo!”, “that’s great, buddy!”), excited yelling and laughter, talking to himself even though it didn’t make sense to anyone but himself. He was never afraid to show his emotions and not only that, but he also grew to lack a filter as he started talking for real. He’d been lectured a couple of times for being too honest and direct to people he didn’t know. In his five years of living, he had managed to offend quite a number of teachers and friends of his parents.

But they still encouraged his openness. He’d talk, and they would always listen, wanting him to know that whatever happened in his life, they wanted him to tell them about it.

He had been solemn the whole drive to Derry and stayed that way the first half hour after they got there. Seeing his new room for the first time, even when they’d laid down his racetrack carpet and made his bed to make him quickly feel more at home in the foreign house, he had only sniffled and went back outside, feet dragging with every step. With his sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose to hide his teary eyes, he had been sulking on the sidewalk next to the moving truck when the boy in the red raincoat had come into his view.

_Oh, Eddie._

Eddie had truly been able to get Richie from sad to happy in a matter of seconds with his little smile. His immediate friendship proposal had made Richie feel more special than he’d ever thought he could be. Not having been in the town for more than an hour and Richie had already made the most important friend he would ever make his entire life.

His parents had certainly seemed happy when they’d seen Richie with Eddie, relieved to finally see a genuine smile on his face. When Eddie left, Richie had spent the next 20 minutes talking about the time they’d spent together. About Eddie’s pretty rainbow drawing that he’d let Richie have, and how he had laughed at some of the things Richie said. And then he had given them both a tight hug and said with a big smile that he didn’t think Derry was too bad after all.

Getting to know Bill hadn’t been a problem either. Bill had seemed to like Richie simply because Eddie did, and the two of them hadn’t even hesitated for a second to include Richie into their little friendship. As for now, Eddie was Richie’s closest, and conclusively because of that, best friend, but he also knew that Bill was Eddie’s best friend. It only made sense that Richie couldn’t be Eddie’s.

Richie used to have a best friend back in New York who he had gone to pre-school with. His name was Peter and he was a smiling bubble of joy that had always made Richie cackle with laughter. Together they had gotten into quite some troubles a few times, and once he’d overheard Peter’s mom saying to Peter something about Richie not being a good friend for him to have when Richie had been over to their house. When he asked Peter about it later, Peter had said she thought he was loud and a troublemaker. Apparently she was still mad about the time Peter had knocked out one of his front teeth when the two of them had been playing with sticks, blaming Richie even though it hadn’t been his fault. Peter had fallen while running, managing to knock his chin into the wooden edge of the sandpit. The tooth had flown right out. Peter had wailed louder than ever before and Richie had held his hand while the teacher called his mom.

He used to hold hands with Peter sometimes.

Richie had always been affectionate and severely clingy, loving cuddles and the physical attention from someone else, especially from his parents. But holding hands wasn’t something that felt natural for him to do with everyone. It felt natural with his parents, it had felt natural with Peter, and it felt natural with Eddie. Making friends with Eddie so quickly had filled his heart with so much excitement that reaching for his hand that first day had happened automatically, almost on autopilot, like a magnet.

With Eddie he had a very special kind of friendship, and Richie felt so lucky that Eddie let him hold his hand. But if Eddie had Bill as a best friend, then Riche needed to find his own.

Richie met Stanley Uris on the first day of pre-school.

The entire weekend building up to that day, he’d felt tons of knots in his stomach, nerves taking over his entire body with shakes. His parents had been worried for him, his mom close to tears, when they sent him off on the yellow school bus for the first time, hugging him one too many times. But Eddie and Bill had been by his side the whole time, and as soon as the three of them had stepped into the classroom together, he knew he would be fine.

It was at recess that Richie met Stan. Bill and Eddie wanted to play tag, but Richie needed to pee first. And when he stepped out into the schoolyard a couple of minutes later, the first thing he saw was a dark haired boy sitting alone on the roundabout. The boy was sitting still with his feet nudging at the sand below instead of going around.

Making sure the boy didn’t notice him, Richie made his way over quietly, and with a quick decision, he grabbed the handle and started the roundabout to the left, his push gentle as to not startle the boy too much. With a tiny squeal of surprise, the boy whipped his head around, panicked eyes frantically looking for the source of this surprise, wide gaze soon landing on Richie.

And with the biggest smile he could manage, Richie yelled out a “Hi!”

“Hello?” The boy said shyly, almost sounding like a question, voice laced with confusion.

Richie kept spinning the roundabout, pushing it occasionally when it started to slow down, the boy staying quiet as he kept going around in circles. A smile had taken over his lips as he clutched his knees to his chest, eyes locked softly on the ground. A comfortable silence fell over them for a few moments.

“I’m Richie”, he said after a while.

The boy looked up then. “I’m Stan.”

“My friends and I are going to play tag if you want to join”, he offered, gripping the handle to finally stop the roundabout from spinning.

The boy, Stan, shrugged, his smile turning wider. “Okay.”

The four of them were now a group, both Bill and Eddie ecstatic to include Stan when the two of them had walked over. He decided quickly that he wanted to ask Stan if the two of them could be best friends. It just made perfect sense when Eddie and Bill were, almost like it was meant to be that way.

And Richie sure liked Stan a whole lot. He was funny and weird and he loved birds. Stan even mentioned a magic trick he had seen on the telly where the magician had made white birds appear. It was amazing how Richie’s favorite thing and Stan’s favorite thing could be combined.

As different as they were, they were also so similar, and they laughed a lot together. And even though they had only known each other for a little while, Stan had accepted with a smile when Richie asked if they could be best friends.

But he didn’t want to hold Stan’s hand like he wanted to hold Eddie’s.

It was Friday, after the last day of Richie’s first week in kindergarten and his mom was preparing some dinner while Richie sat by the kitchen island, talking once again about his day at school. His dad was expected home any second, the three of them planning to enjoy a nice Friday dinner together.

“Why do people kiss?” Richie asked then, a question he’d been pondering over for a while. More than once he’d seen his parents kiss, and they also gave him kisses sometimes too. The reason behind the question came from seeing a girl and a boy kiss right outside the schoolyard while he was waiting for the bus home. He felt like it had to be a nice thing, but he was still curious.

His mom looked up from the sauce she was cooking, a surprised smile taking over her face. “Kiss?”

He nodded frantically, eyes wide behind his glasses as he looked at her. “Yeah!”

“Well…” she paused, thinking over her words. “Kissing is something you do with people you love.” Before he could react, she had leaned over the counter to kiss him on the cheek. He giggled at her. “See, I just kissed your cheek because I love you.”

He nodded slowly. So it was a _very_ nice thing. “But why do some people kiss on the lips then?”

She stopped for a moment, lips pursed, as she seemed to struggle with finding an answer. “I think… I think it’s different for people, but the easiest way to explain it, I guess… Uh, is that I love your dad in a romantic way, and when you love someone in a romantic way you want to kiss them on the lips. I love you in a motherly way, which is different. But it’s different for some people. Sometimes it’s not where you kiss, but how you kiss. And why.”

“What does that mean?” He asked honestly.

Her brows furrowed, a conflicted frown flashing over her features. “I kiss you like a mother, but I kiss your dad like a wife. They’re two different ways to kiss.”

“Oh!” He exclaimed. That made sense. “Okay.”

She nodded, but still seemed to consider his questions. As she turned back to check on the sauce, the sound of the front door opening echoed through the house. At that, Richie jumped out of his seat excitedly to welcome his dad home.

“Dad!” He yelled, seeing his dad dusting off his shoes on the mat. As he ran, his dad let out a soft laugh and bent down with his arms stretched out, Richie darting right into his embrace.

“Hi champ! How was your day at school?” His dad said into his ear, pulling him close to his chest before letting go to take off his shoes.

“It was great! Stan found a pretty stone. It was almost black and it glittered a little, and Eddie got jealous. So we tried to find more of them so he could have one too.”

“Well, did you find any?”

“Me! I did! But it wasn’t as pretty as Stan’s, but I gave it to Eddie anyways and he was super happy.” He grinned.

“That’s very nice of you.” His dad said as he stood back up to take off his jacket. “What’s mom making for dinner?”

“Spaghetti!”

“Not worms?” He asked, crouching back down with a goofy grin on his face.

Repeating what characters had said in movies or on the television had become a thing Richie enjoyed doing a lot, and his dad had been especially good at joining in whenever Richie tried impersonating someone. It always made Richie so happy. There were some quotes he never stopped saying and the worm-line from ‘The Fox and the Hound’ was one of them.

“A worm for breakfast?” Richie started, trying to change his voice as best as he could, darkening it a little and attempting to sound like Todd. It sounded pretty good to him.

The two of them looked at each other for a second. “Yuck!” They finished together, both pretending to look disgusted, Richie even sticking his tongue out. Breaking character at the same time, they both started laughing and his dad reached out to poke Richie’s nose.

“You’re getting better at that one!” 

Richie beamed before running back into the kitchen, the smell of meat sauce enveloping him.

“Dinner is ready in just a moment”, his mom said, turning to Richie. “Could you set the table, darling?”

As he set the table, the cutlery and plates already laid out on the island to make it easier for him, his dad walked into the kitchen. “Smells delicious”, he said, walking up to Richie’s mom to kiss her on the cheek.

Richie held the plates carefully in fear of breaking anything while looking at them curiously. “Now the lips.”

Both of his parents looked at him, his dad lifting an eyebrow in confusion. When she laughed, he let his gaze drift back to her, both eyes widened. She leaned her hip on the counter. “Richie learned about the different types of kisses today.”

“Oh, did you now?” His dad’s lips stretched out into a smile.

“Yeah! Richie said, spreading the plates out on the table. “And you have to kiss mom on the lips because you love her in a romantic way.”

“Huh”, his dad said and nodded his head, sounding impressed. “Right.”

He leaned over to kiss her on the lips quickly before turning back to his smiling son. As she finished the food and Richie had finished setting the table (“thank you so much, Richie, it looks great”, smiling at the praise), the three of them sat down for their dinner.

“Now tell me about the other types of kisses then?” His dad said, looking at him expectantly.

“It’s different with romantic kisses and the kisses mom gives to me”, Richie started. “She kisses me on the cheek and kisses you on the lips. But…” He stopped for a moment, trying to remember what it was that she’d said. “It’s different ways to kiss.” He looked at her in question and she nodded her head.

“That’s right.”

“But how do I know if I want to kiss someone in a romantic way?” He asked curiously.

His parents looked at each other in amusement.

“You feel it in your heart”, his mom said, looking back over at Richie. “When I look at your dad, my heart starts to race and…” She reached for his dad’s hand. “I want to hold his hand.”

Richie gasped. “But I want to hold Eddie’s hand!” He yelled excitedly. “Does that mean I love him in a romantic way?”

He noticed his parents freezing up for a moment. Silence settled between them after his question rang through the room. Only the sound of his fork hitting his plate as he prepared a new bite of pasta could be heard. His parents shared a look he didn’t understand, and he furrowed his brows, scared he had said something wrong.

“Richie”, his dad started carefully. “You’re still too little to love someone romantically yet.” He laughed uncomfortably.

“I’m not little, I’m big! I’m five!” He gaped, a weird feeling settling in his chest.

“You’ll know when you’re older, darling”, his mom said, trying to smile warmly at him. “And just like me and your dad, you’ll meet someone and get married.”

He looked at her, absolutely horrified. “But I don’t want to marry a stranger! Can’t I marry one of you?” Marrying someone he didn’t know? _No, sir-ree_ , that sounded horrible.

They both laughed. “It doesn’t work like that”, his mom continued. “And you won’t marry a stranger. You’ll have plenty of time to fall in love. And then you’ll get married.”

He shook his head again, red curls bouncing on his head. “No, but that’s scary.”

“It might seem a little scary now, but it isn’t, I promise”, she said. “And if you don’t want to marry anybody when you’re older, that’s okay too.”

He nodded his head, feeling a little more okay about the idea now; the pressure in his chest easing a little bit as the uncomfortable tension in the room also seemed to vanish. “But can’t I marry Eddie then?”

His dad barked out a short laugh. “Not exactly legal”, he muttered. Richie didn’t understand what that meant.

“Wentworth!” His mom stressed, shooting his dad a warning look. Looking over at Richie, she reached out her hand and put it on his shoulder.

“It’s just…” she stopped, eyes flickering. Richie had never seen her look so uncertain, eyes never able to land on anything, lips slightly opened but creased downwards. The closest thing he could think of was the time he’d managed to break one of her important vases, and she had looked so unsure of how to react, pieces of glass shattered all around his sock-clad feet and tears on his face after getting scared by the loud sound. He still had a small scar on his big toe.

Eventually, she sighed and lifted her mouth into a soft smile, gaze finally landing on him. “Sure you can, darling. You and Eddie can’t get married right now, but maybe when you two are older, hopefully. And if you both want to, then of course.”

“Really?” He asked and his cheeks lit up with pink.

“Really”, she confirmed. She shared a look with his dad, a silent conversation happening between them that Richie didn’t see.

“I think me and Eddie could be a great mom and dad!” He exclaimed happily. He could already picture it, the two of them holding hands and giving each other tiny cheek kisses when they got home after work. Maybe they’d have a cat named Clover, a lucky cat instead of the black ones that crossed the street.

“You would both be dads, buddy”, his dad said amusedly.

“Huh?”

“Because you and Eddie are boys, you would both be dads. A mom is a girl”, he explained.

Richie’s brows drew together. “Oh.” He didn’t even think about it like that, but he guessed it made sense. All of his friends’ moms were girls. “But who’s going to be the mom, then?”

“As long as it’s you two dads, I don’t think a mom is needed”, his dad said.

“And I’m sure you two would be great dads”, his mom added, patting his shoulder.

“But does that mean I love him in a romantic way? Because I wanna marry him?”

“Well, you’re still too young for all that, so you don’t need to worry”, she said.

He frowned. “But what about kisses? You said we kiss the people we love. Does that mean I get to kiss Eddie?”

His parents looked at each other.

“I guess… I guess that’s fine”, his mom said, although quite uncertainly. “But not on the lips and only if he says it’s okay.” She pointed a finger at him.

“But cheek is fine?”

She nodded her head, and he smiled at both of them. His dad laughed then and leaned over to ruffle his hair. “That’s good, Rich.”

It had been a couple of weeks since Richie had that conversation with his parents, and once in a while he found himself thinking about kisses and marriage. Something about the way his parents had reacted when he asked them still sat in his chest unnervingly. The way they had looked at each other, and the way his mom had yelled his dad’s name when he had said that thing Richie hadn’t been able to understand.

But in the end it all seemed okay, right? He had tried shrugging it off, but he still didn’t know if he really was allowed to give any kisses yet. Sometimes he had thought about giving Eddie a small kiss on the cheek just to show him how important he was to him, but he’d always stop himself. Maybe someday when he got older like his parents said, he would love Eddie in a romantic way and he could give Eddie a kiss then. On the lips even!

 _Holy moly_ , he thought, smiling.

Richie was showing off a new card trick to Eddie, the two of them sitting on his racecar carpet, fluffy pillows underneath their butts. 21 cards were on display on the floor in three vertical rows, seven cards just barely overlapping each other in each of them, and Richie was bouncing with anticipation. If he could just get it right this time, he knew Eddie would be impressed.

It had been raining for almost two weeks straight, and Richie had started to get pretty tired of it. Eddie told him that was just how it was in Derry. But that day, the sun was shining; peaking into his bedroom through the blue curtains he’d pulled to the sides in excitement as soon as he woke up and saw the pretty weather. The glowing light created shapes inside and the branches from the trees manifested as shadows on his bedroom floor. The kind where if you sped up the time in fast motion they would move from one end of the room to the other and the bright light would turn golden orange as the night ticked closer, maybe even red if the light reflected through the window right.

“Pick a card, but don’t tell me which one. When you’ve decided, point at the row it’s in”, he started, already preparing his next moves. He really wanted to get it right, wanting to impress Eddie _so_ bad.

He had learned the trick from one of his books, his dad helping him with the reading. Testing it on his dad several times, he had not only succeeded four times, but also failed the same. Practicing on his own he had a success ratio of 8/10 times, and he was pretty sure he was ready to try it on someone else.

“Alright”, Eddie mumbled, a line appearing between his brows as he concentrated. “It’s in this row.” He pointed to the one on the right.

Richie nodded before starting to collect the cards together in his hands. First taking the row in the middle and sliding them together to make sure they stayed in the same order, then he slid the one on the right together and put it on top before finishing with the last one on the left. The order was made to put the row of Eddie’s card in the middle, not that Eddie was supposed to know that. Placing them back onto the floor, one after one in three new rows, he watched as Eddie stared down every move he made. Probably trying to see if he could call out whatever Richie was doing to trick him.

“Okay”, Richie said as the cards once again were on display. “What row now?”

Eddie looked for a few seconds. “This one.” He pointed to the left one.

Richie nodded again, collecting the cards starting with the row on the right, then the left and then the middle one. Eddie looked up at him, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“Why did you change the order?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“What do you mean?” Richie said, trying to fake innocence.

“You started in the middle last time and now you started on the right!” He said, exasperated with his arms flying around.

“A magician never reveals his secrets”, Richie said, making his voice gravelly darker. He had watched a magic show the day before and one of the magicians had said it after sawing a lady in half and putting her back together. Richie had thought it sounded super cool.

Eddie just huffed, looking displeased as he crossed his arms.

Continuing with his trick, Richie smiled as he put down the cards once again in the three rows. “Where is your card now?” He put his fists up onto his face to hide his grin, not wanting Eddie to get annoyed at him for being excited.

“Middle”, Eddie grumbled with a pout. His arms were still crossed over his chest.

“Alrighty!” Richie said cheerfully, collecting the cards once again, this time going from left to middle to right.

“You changed the order again!” Eddie yelled.

Richie had to hold back his laugh. “Yeah.”

His key to succeeding was that Eddie’s card had to be in the middle row, and now that it was, that was his queue to finish the trick. But he felt unsure. He had to consider for a few moments what to do next. The book had said three turns should be enough, but there had been times when he’s tried where three hadn’t worked. He shrugged. One more time just to be safe. Then he laid down the cards in the three rows again. “Last time, I promise.”

Eddie’s annoyed scowl was replaced by concentration as he looked for his card. “Middle again.” He looked away from Richie, nose in the air, annoyed that he couldn’t figure out what the trick was about. Richie cheered internally, knowing he’d succeeded.

“Okay”, Richie said, faking cool, collecting the cards once again, this time in the exact same order as last time just to confuse Eddie even more.

“Now you didn’t change it?” he gaped.

“Just watch”, Richie smiled. Then he started putting the cards down on the floor on top of each other in a pile with the face down.

 _One, two, three, four_ , all the way up to ten, he counted before he stopped. With the eleventh card in his hand, he turned it around and put it on top of the pile with the queen of hearts staring them in their faces.

“Is this your card?” Richie asked, gesturing to it, a winning smile already breaking out on his face.

Eddie’s jaw fell open, eyes wide. “What? Yes!”

That was all it took for Richie to cheer, clapping his hands together.

“How did you do that?” Eddie asked, mouth still very much agape.

“A magician never…”

“Never reveals his secrets”, Eddie joined in.

Richie grinned at him, proud that he had made it. Eddie sure looked impressed, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Why can’t you show me?” Eddie whined. “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

“It’s just a trick”, he explained with a shrug of his shoulders. “And if I show you, it’s not as cool anymore.”

Eddie slumped, an unsatisfied but understanding look on his face. “Fine”, he sighed.

Richie put away the cards and scooted closer to Eddie. They looked at each other, both smiling as Richie reached over to poke at Eddie’s bicep. “Had any new dreams then?”

Eddie perched up at that.

“Yeah”, he murmured, reaching down to his pants, small fingers roaming inside of the front pocket before fishing out a small paper. “I dreamt about us when we were older, and look.” He gave the paper to Richie, their fingers brushing. Richie automatically took a hold of Eddie’s hand, locking their fingers together as he looked at the drawing.

Richie quickly recognized himself on the paper. With big eyes behind glasses and curly red hair, he stood on a stage with lots of lights. He was wearing a cape with golden stars and a big top hat, pointing towards a white rabbit with a wand.

“I think that’s going to be you in the future”, Eddie said. “But it’s just a dream so I’m not sure. I was just laying in my room and imagining, and I pictured you on the stage and the people watching were clapping so loud and you were so happy.”

Richie smiled. “You really think I’m going to become a magician?”

Eddie shrugged, a corner of his mouth lifted. “I hope so. And yesterday I dreamt that we were able to pick all the planets and the stars down from the sky, and you picked the sun down, and held it between your fingers.”

“Wow”, Richie whispered.

“I drew that too, but I forgot to bring it.” Eddie shrugged.

And then it just happened. Richie leaned over and kissed Eddie carefully on the cheek. He looked confused when Richie leaned back, brows furrowed. “Why did you do that?” He wiped at his cheek with the sleeve of his sweater, letting go of Richie’s hand. Richie frowned, hurt.

“Was that not okay?” he asked, his mom’s words echoing inside his head:  _But not on the lips and only if he says it’s okay_. If Eddie didn’t think Richie kissing him was okay, then he wasn’t allowed to do it. “My mom said you kiss the people you love.” The uncomfortable feeling was back, settling deep inside of him.

Eddie kept staring at him, that same look never fading, his brows drawn together. “But my Ma says boys don’t kiss other boys.”

 _Oh_.

Richie blinked. He didn’t even know that was a thing. His parents hadn’t even mentioned anything about that being a problem. He remembered specifically them saying if Eddie and him were to become dads together, they wouldn’t need a mom. “Oh”, he whispered, trying to think about a way to make it right. How to make Eddie understand that he meant well.

Silence settled over them, neither boy looking at the other.

“I’m sorry”, Richie finally murmured, voice broken. He suddenly had tons more questions to ask his parents. “I didn’t know that boys couldn’t do that.”

He ducked his head in embarrassment, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He had never felt as stupid as he was feeling in that moment. But he still didn’t know if he agreed with what Eddie’s Ma had said. “But my mom never said anything about that being bad, why is your mom more right than mine?”

Eddie’s head whipped up, gray eyes bulging out. In their three months of knowing each other, they had never had anything close to a fight or disagreement. And Richie had never seen Eddie hold Bill’s hand or Stan’s hand, so he knew their friendship was special to Eddie too.

“Oh”, Eddie said, repeating what Richie had said only seconds earlier. He looked on the verge of a breakdown, an overwhelming amount of confusion etched on his features. It seemed he hadn’t ever thought there was a truth outside of his Ma’s.

“Kisses should never be bad”, Richie continued. He felt like that much should be obvious. He had never meant any harm when he leaned over to press his lips to Eddie’s cheek. “They mean love.”

Eddie didn’t answer, an unreadable look taking over his face as he looked at Richie.

“If people kiss to be mean, they don’t deserve the love that kisses are”, Richie continued. “But if you thought I was mean when I kissed you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Another silence. If Richie had ruined their friendship with a kiss, he knew he was going to cry a whole lot.

“I know you’re not mean”, Eddie finally said.

“I’m still sorry. My mom said I could only kiss you if you said it was okay”, he explained apologetically. “And I didn’t ask you before I did it.”

Eddie shook his head. “No, it’s…” He stopped, moving closer. “I think it’s okay.” Then he reached for Richie’s hand again, smiling at him with pink cheeks as their palms met.

“I won’t do it again unless you want me to”, Richie promised, squeezing Eddie’s hand.

“Thanks”, Eddie said, and Richie knew the two of them were okay.

Later that day they had planned to meet up with Stan and Bill in the park. Already Richie knew the four of them would be friends forever. He could picture them buying houses next to each other and eating dinner together every day. Maybe he and Eddie would even live in the same house.

The four boys were sitting in the shadow of a tree, all of them tired after playing rounds of Kick the Can in the warm August sun. Richie had lost every time, never managing to stay silent enough to remain discreet and inevitably revealing himself every single time to the others before he’d even moved from his hiding spot. Eddie was the fastest runner of the bunch, and he’d managed to get to the target before the others most of the time.

Stan’s parents were sitting on a bench not too far away, keeping an eye on them.

Richie was sitting next to Stan, their backs leaning against the tree, a scrapbook full of birds Stan had brought shared between them, lying on top of their thighs. Stan was pointing to different birds they saw in the trees and then showing them in his book. Most of the pictures were cut-outs from magazines and books that Stan had glued into it, but some of them had been taken by Stan’s dad, and a couple even by Stan.

“I want to replace all of the ones from other places with pictures I take myself someday”, he’d said, fingers softly brushing over the picture of a finch he’d found in an old nature magazine a couple of weeks ago.

Eddie and Bill were lying in the grass not too far away, looking at the clouds. Every few seconds they’d point up to the sky to show their new found discoveries, laughs escaping them when they saw one that looked funny. Richie was doing his best to pay attention to what Stan was showing him, and he was able to most of the time, but every once in a while he couldn’t help but listen into the conversation happening between them. Both Richie and Eddie were wearing their matching sunglasses to keep their eyes safe from the strong sunlight, and it made Richie happy that they shared that.

“And there’s like hundreds of different kinds of pigeons! Did you know that?” Stan was pointing down into his scrapbook. “And I’ve only seen seven different ones in real life, but I want to see all of them, and there is even one that’s all black! It looks so cool, and see, this picture, look!”

Richie looked where Stan was pointing, and right there was indeed a picture of a black pigeon. “Wow”, he whispered, leaning in closer. With its light gray beak and red eyes, it almost looked like a monster pigeon. He said so out loud, making Stan laugh and push him with a ‘you’re silly’.

“And do you see that one there?” He pointed up into a tree a little to their left. On one of the branches sat a grey bird with a red spot on its throat. A family of five was relaxing underneath it, and Richie got nervous for the bird flying away with two of the kids running wildly around the tree.

“I think that’s a hummingbird, I might have it already in my book”, Stan mumbled as he flipped through the book. As he struggled to find the bird he was looking for, Richie tuned into Eddie and Bill’s conversation.

“That one looks like a guitar”, Eddie said, pointing up to the sky. Richie followed his finger, looking up at the so-called guitar cloud. Not even close to looking like a guitar, he scoffed.

“No, that’s a dog!” he argued, joining in.

Eddie turned his head to look up at him, eyes peaking over his sunglasses. “What? No! That’s absolutely a guitar!” He pointed once again determinately at the cloud to accentuate his point, as if that would make the cloud change.

Richie looked at him in betrayal. “But dogs and guitars don’t even look alike!”

“I know that! But that’s still a guitar!” Eddie was laughing now. His blonde hair was curling slightly around his ears, the pink sunglasses looking really pretty with it.

They went back and forth for a little while, Bill joining in on Eddie’s side, and when Richie looked back up at the cloud a couple of minutes later, he came to discover that the cloud had shifted and turned, undeniably, into a guitar.

“Fine”, he grumbled in defeat, and Eddie beamed at him in victory. When Richie turned back to Stan, the book had been opened to a different page, the same bird from the tree in the right corner of it. Noticing that he had Richie’s attention again, Stan continued talking. He even showed Richie the white birds he’d seen in the magic show. They looked super pretty, and if there was any tricks Richie ever wanted to learn, it was that one.

“Richie?” Eddie’s voice interrupted their conversation a little later, and Richie looked up to see Eddie standing in front of him. Eddie reached out a hand. “Do you want to pick flowers with me? I can show you how to make a flower crown.”

“Okay”, he replied immediately, taking Eddie’s hand and the two of them walked towards the yellow dandelions on the edge of the park, pinkies locked together.

When they started picking flowers, Richie saw Eddie going only for the dandelions, but he himself wanted to pick the white flowers he could see. He liked the shape of their petals better.

After a couple of minutes they put down their small gatherings on the grass and sat down next to each other. Eddie grabbed the prettiest of Richie’s flowers, the fully blossomed ones with the biggest petals and no brown withered corners, and started knotting them together by the stems, showing Richie how to do it. He’d observe every flower carefully before declaring them pretty enough to be put in the flower crown, a couple of the less perfect ones thrown to the side. Putting the foundation of the crown into Richie’s hands, he let Richie try to continue on his own, observing his motions with glittering gray eyes and lending a hand whenever Richie made a mistake.

Finishing the crown for him by tying the two ends together, Eddie gave it back to Richie who with a smile thought of giving it to his mom when he got home later.

“Could I make you one with the dandelions? I think they would look so pretty with your hair”, Eddie offered.

“Oh, I already have a flower crown”, Richie smiled. He put his crown into the grass and reached out for the remaining pile of flowers and took the prettiest he could find of the white ones. Its stem was thin and fragile, but the five petals were nearly perfect apart from a tiny wilted spot. With his tongue peaking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration he broke off some of the stem so only a little was left and moved closer to Eddie. Lifting some of the hair above Eddie’s right ear, he put the flower between the strands, trying to make it stay on its own without slipping out. When it finally stuck, he let the hair fall back over the stem to hold it in place, the flower like a little decoration in Eddie’s golden locks. “You.”

“But you can’t wear me, dummy.” Eddie laughed, cheeks tinted pink from the sun. Richie seemed to make Eddie laugh a whole lot.

But then he nodded his head. “I’d love a flower crown.”

As Eddie started knotting flowers together, the little white flower still perfectly stuck in his hair, Richie looked over at Stan and Bill and noticed them doing some hand clapping game, Stan’s book on the grass beside them. As his eyes locked on them, he also noticed their singing. It had been that kind of sound that only passed as a background noise until you focused on it, then the sound would be obvious.

The sun had settled in a soft glow, golden light covering the park like a blanket. He could tell Eddie had picked out the prettiest of the dandelions, all fully bloomed and radiant with the yellow color. Being careful to make it as pretty as he could, he was treating every petal as if a single touch was all it took for the flower to collapse and the petals to tumble off.

Then out of nowhere, Eddie stopped and looked up to the sky. Richie could tell he was squinting behind his sunglasses as he stared up towards the sun, small creases appearing in the corners of his eyes and eyebrows furrowed. Then he lifted his arm in front of his face and up to the sky, pointing out his thumb and forefinger towards the sun and looking at them before letting his arm drop back down, eyes still locked on his hand, looking like he was holding something between his fingers even though he wasn’t.

“What are you doing?” Richie asked.

“I just remembered my dream, you know, the one with how we could pick down the stars from the sky? Well, I wanted to try picking the sun down like you did in the dream.”

“Oh.” Richie looked back up towards the sky, the sunlight blinding him even behind the dark grayness of his glasses. He too put up his hand like Eddie had done, placing his thumb and forefinger on each side of the sun, making it look as if he was holding it. Contrasting with the bright light, his fingers were only dark silhouettes, and small rings of colors appeared in his vision from the sunlight reflecting in the air around. Picking the sun down was almost like picking a plum down from a plum tree. Or like picking up one of those glittering black stones that Eddie liked. Or like picking an orange-flavored confectionary up from a box of chocolates.

“I bet the sun would taste like orange”, Richie thought out loud, suddenly craving the sweet taste.

“Yeah”, Eddie agreed after a few seconds of silence. “Probably.”

Then Eddie went back to finishing the flower crown, and when Richie looked over at him, spots in every single color appeared and blocked parts of Eddie’s face. He tried blinking them away, but it only made him aware of the fact that he could see them behind his closed lids too.

“This is the prettiest flower crown I’ve ever made”, Eddie beamed. Then he placed it onto Richie’s head, and Richie sat up more straight, proud to be wearing something Eddie had given him.

“How do I look?” He smiled crookedly, putting his hands up onto his head to feel the flower crown with clumsy fingers. He could feel a couple of petals falling off and into his hair.

Eddie seemed to look him over, eyes flickering over his hair and face. The sun gave Eddie’s skin a rosy glow, his freckles like spots of gold on his cheeks. He was truly shining, eyes glittering and lips slicked with spit, and almost as if Eddie could read his mind, Eddie opened his mouth with a tiny smile and said: “you’re shining.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Please let me know what you think! Come be my friend on tumblr: moonlightrichie


	3. Gasoline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie has some issues with smells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: descriptions of nausea and throwing up, homophobia
> 
> I tend to be detailed when I write sometimes (probably too detailed in this case I'm sorry), and if throwing up makes you uncomfortable in any way, read at your own risk. Let me know if there are any other warnings I should add that I might have forgotten or that I didn’t know of.
> 
> Stay safe!

_“She can’t get well, not even with medicine_  
_And her dress smells like gasoline”_

 

 

Eddie didn’t like the smell of gasoline.

Getting close to cars had almost started to become a problem now, the stench always pushing its way into his nostrils, making him want to gag. Whenever his Ma was driving him somewhere, he always felt the urge to hold his breath.

Unsurprisingly, that had quickly become an impossible challenge as he could only stop breathing for so long. At some point he’d have to desperately inhale when he couldn’t keep it in anymore, his lungs screaming for air and his fingers itching to claw at his throat, and it always made his eyes water and the heavy breaths following felt strained and painful.

He had opted to breathe with his mouth a couple of times, but it made his inside churn just the same, his brain somehow convincing him that he was eating it instead.

It was only recently that this had become an issue at all. His love for cars was still present, even though it had faded with his associations with gasoline. Just a year ago he would jump with excitement whenever he was getting into a car, but now he’d frown, already feeling his stomach twisting in disgust at just the thought of getting close.

It was during the summer it had started, in July, four months before his seventh birthday. His first ever summer vacation away from Derry. His Ma wasn’t big on travelling, saying their hometown was where they were safest. But after weeks of begging, Eddie had finally managed to convince her of going someplace else for once.

After listening to Bill talk about the family trip he was going on that summer and Richie telling their group excitedly about returning to New York for a couple of weeks in June, Eddie wanted to go somewhere new too. He’d listened to them wide-eyed, only imagining the beautiful places and monuments his friends would get to see. He wanted to maybe see open landscapes and those big shopping malls, men in business suits and city women in high heels. Travel to the other side of the country where it was warm all year long and drive through the desert, something Richie had done the year prior.

His Ma had reluctantly agreed to a small road trip, deciding for a drive through Vermont, down to New Jersey and maybe a small visit in Pennsylvania with the final destination being Washington DC to see The White House. She wasn’t a comfortable driver, not daring to drive more than a few hours every day. They were supposed to be gone for three weeks and stay, among other places, for a couple nights in Burlington, a couple nights in Pittsburgh and with a few one-nights at motels when the drive was too long between two destinations. All in all, Eddie had been beyond excited, not entirely sure what even to expect.

It had all went smoothly until their way home. They were driving from New York (their longest stay) towards a motel in Montpelier, where they were spending their last night before driving home the next day, when Eddie had started getting carsick. Managing to stay fine the entire trip until that point made his Ma suspicious that maybe he had eaten something his little stomach couldn’t hold. Or maybe it had just been the swingy roads that were now in their rearview mirror that had made his tummy give up on staying still.

No matter what it was, he had never felt more terrible in his entire life. He had the memories of throwing up a couple of times from when he was younger, and he remembered the burning in his throat, the rotten taste and the feeling of remnant chunks between his teeth. But he couldn’t remember it being this bad, probably too young then.

To put it simply, he was terrified of throwing up, and he could soon feel his heart starting to pound harshly in his chest. He could feel it building up inside him, and he knew it was coming. The fact that the road was majorly bumpy made it no easier, swings and humps shaking his entire body. It was almost like all his insides were mixing together and he could feel his stomach moving, an awful gurgling sound accompanying it.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Eddie-bear. That should help”, his Ma said, voice slightly shaky with worry. So his eyes stayed glued to the road, even scooting to the middle seat to make sure he could see it at all times. He wasn’t quite sure how that would help with his nausea, but he figured he’d trust her word.

He didn’t dare move after that, feeling like any simple movement would be too much and his stomach would react by shooting its loads out. His heart was hammering so loudly he could hear it, the thumps drowning out any other noise. Biting his tongue and breathing steadily, he tried to will the sickness to be gone, hoping to force it away, but it only got worse. Every time he breathed in, it was like his stomach was preparing itself, and when he breathed out, he could feel his stomach tightening, ready to spill out with the exhale.

With a threatening panic on the edge of breaking out, tears started collecting in his eyes. His shaky breathing started getting more rapid, and tiny whimpers escaped his closed lips. “Ma”, he tried, barely daring to open his mouth enough to get the word out. He sounded terrified.

“Do you need to throw up?” she asked, ready to pull over. But he couldn’t focus on her question, barely registering her words.

Concentrating on the road hadn’t helped, and tears finally started sliding down his puffy cheeks. The music playing softly from the radio was impossible to hear at this point, his thrashing heart the only thing he could comprehend. His chest was starting to hurt from the constant explosions happening inside of him, heart going so fast he thought he might die.

Absolutely refusing to throw up, he swallowed down hard, but it seemed his throat had been boarded up. Trying again, the sound of his gulp mute to his own deaf ears, he managed to hurt his throat with the pressure. His hands were shaking so badly, he had to turn them into fists, nails digging into the palms of his hands.

“It- it won’t go away”, he wept, fingers pinching at his thighs in an attempt to distract himself from the bubbling constantly going madder inside him. It felt like someone had pushed their hands into his body and were violently roaming around inside of his stomach, splashing around in its liquids. Tears were flowing freely, sliding into the crevices on the sides of his nose and into his mouth. “I’m scared, it hurts so ba-ha-ha- _haad_ ”, he fully sobbed out the last word, feeling wet snot on top of his lips, mixing in with his tears. The taste made him feel sicker.

“That’s it, I’m driving you to the hospital”, his Ma said, speeding up.

“No!” he close to yelled.

“Yes!” “No, no, it’s…” he stopped, panic twisting in his chest. “Wait!”

“It can’t wait!”

“But it’s… It’s not that bad.”

However he felt, going to a hospital was worse.

“No, Eddie, we’re driving to a hospital.”

“No, I just need some water, and I’ll be fine, promise.” He wouldn’t be fine, he knew. He was happy she was forced to keep her eyes on the road, not able to see him properly from the front seat and notice his state.

“You’re sick, Eddie.”

Even though he muttered a choked “no”, he could feel his stomach tightening in disagreement, because oh yes, he was absolutely sick. His heart thrummed louder and harder, the intervals between each beat getting smaller and smaller.

“Hospital, and that’s final”, she determined.

With tearstained cheeks, he sniffled, clutching his waist tightly as if that would keep it from turning inside out. Keeping his eyes on the road, he begged his body to let him off the hook.

 _Please_ , he though to himself. _Just please stop._

Just, please, anything to make him feel okay. He’d never experienced a discomfort such as this one, and he had started to struggle with breathing.

A few moments past, time moving slowly, minutes that felt like hours, when he heard the worried voice of his Ma. “Oh no.”

He whipped his head to her, eyes widening in alarm. “What’s happening?”

“I…” She sighed. “We need to get to a gas station.”

Just then the sound of small beeps broke through the barrier of blood pumping in his ears and blocking his hearing. He hadn’t even noticed, his only focus on keeping his food down, but it was clear as day now: the car was out of gas.

The thought of getting some fresh air made him inhale heavily in desperation, the thought not even having crossed his mind in his terror. Maybe that was all he needed. Just get out the car, and cleanse out his system with a couple of deep breaths.

Time ticked by sluggishly, his head throbbing, but eventually they finally pulled into a gas station. As soon as the car came to a stop, he threw himself out the door, falling to the ground. His knees protested, a distant pain to be felt as small scratches already started to bleed as he stood back up. Feeling firm ground beneath him, his body no longer getting shaken by every bump on the road, pulled him back to earth quickly.

He already felt better, his head not exploding anymore. But then he breathed in, and, _uh oh, oh God_. The smell was undeniable.

_Gasoline._

Even though it was familiar, he had never thought it could smell this bad, never particularly liking it, but never thought of it as necessarily stinky either. And before he could comprehend just how terrible it made him feel, truly the icing on the cake of his nausea, he felt his stomach react and next thing he knew he was blowing chunks all over the side of the car, body jerking forward. He could feel wetness hit his bare calf, which only made him puke more in disgust.

“Eddie!” he heard his Ma scream from somewhere far away.

He was full on crying again at that point, wet tears dripping from his chin, or maybe it was puke. His body shook with sobs, eyes sore from crying and painful wails forcing themselves out of his throat. “ _Maaaa_.”

She was at his side in an instant, her white shoes appearing in his line of vision as well as the bottom of her dress. Its purple and orange stripes mushed together into a sickening brown color as the world kept spinning around him.

“Oh no, oh no, my poor Eddie-Bear.”

Drying his face with a wet napkin, she patted his hair and looked at him with furrowed brows. He looked around to see some people looking over, a girl with pigtails staring with wide eyes. He felt embarrassment grow in his chest and staining his cheeks pink, and he only cried harder.

The worst part was the smell of gasoline still forcing itself into his nostrils, now mixing in with the stench of his puke, and he started breathing with his mouth instead, but with his crying it only made him choke up. He coughed violently, feeling the taste of metal on his tongue as he continued wailing.

His Ma held him after checking his clothes for stains, moving back and forth in a gesture to calm him down. But he just needed to get away. He needed to get away from the gasoline, away from the puddle of his own digested breakfast on the ground. He needed to get home. He needed the comfort of his friends: a smile from Stan, a hug from Bill or Richie’s outstretched hand in a silent invitation to hold it.

“I wanna go home”, he cried with his face pushed into her pudgy belly, his words muffled.

“We’re going to be home tomorrow”, she said.

“No!” he screamed, turning his face up to look at her. “Home now!”

“We need to go to the hospital first.”

“No!”

“Eddie…”

“No!” Shaking his head frantically.

“Eddie!” This time he stopped, eyes bulging out in fear when he heard the warning tone to her voice. He knew he wasn’t supposed to yell at her like that, and he usually never did. But this time his fear and panic had overpowered that, and he’d sure done it now. She looked real angry.

So that was how it had gone. She had filled the car with gasoline while he cried in the backseat, driven them to the hospital where they gave him some medicine and told him to get a lot of rest before they finally got home to Derry after a night stay in Montpelier as planned.

The smell of gasoline stuck with him the entire way.

Richie had come knocking the day after to ask if Eddie wanted to play, but his Ma had told him Eddie was sick and needed to rest. Eddie had been real upset about that. He hadn’t seen his friend in over three weeks, a pain in his chest in longing. But Eddie still felt terrible, sick to his stomach and the air in his bedroom still reeking of gasoline, so maybe it had been for the best.

It wouldn’t go away.

Even three months later he hadn’t quite managed to get rid of the smell. It was like it had manifested in the part of his brain that sensed scent, tricking him into thinking gasoline was right in front of his nose at all times, sometimes stronger than others. He could be rounding a corner and the smell would hit him like a wall and overwhelm him so much he needed to walk backwards where he came from to calm himself. Sometimes he sensed it from people, as if they had drenched themselves in it, clothes wet and rotten. Just from passing them in the street, it stunk so strongly that his eyes watered. He’d noticed it on his Ma a couple of times too.

How he hadn’t noticed it before the road trip, he couldn’t understand, and sometimes when he was with his friends, the smell would come out of nowhere and nobody would react except for him.

When the four of them had gone trick or treating on Halloween, Richie’s dad going along with them, it had been worse than ever, getting so bad he had begun panicking. Soon he had started breathing harder and faster, only resulting in inhaling even more of the infected air around him, gasoline pushing deep into his lungs and contaminating his body.

At least he hadn’t thrown up since.

Then came a day where he almost did. It was November, the day after his birthday celebration, and his Ma had just walked into the living room in her orange and purple striped dress. Gray buttons starting at her throat and going vertically down to just under her knees. He’d always thought of it as one of her prettier dresses, maybe the prettiest she had, but now all he could feel was the gasoline it reeked off. It was the exact same dress as the one she’d been wearing that day at the gas station when Eddie had been sick. Well, sicker than usual.

And she was lecturing him. Pointing her finger in his face and brows creased downwards in an angry frown, her hair just starting to get greasy in the roots. She would always wait a couple of days too long to wash it, pushing the limits of how wet she could get it to look without it actually being wet, hair sticking together and looking like spaghetti.

Just the day before she’d let him have his friends over to celebrate, not allowed to invite any other people from his class. To him that was fine as long as he had Bill, Richie and Stan there. Surprisingly, his Ma hadn’t seemed too sour that day either, serving them their pizza and cake and letting them play several rounds of Musical Chairs and Charades.

During the Musical Chairs, the four of them had danced from one chair to another, sometimes completely forgetting that they were supposed to wait for the music to stop. It was supposed to be about the suspense, all of them expected to hover over each seat before sprinting to the next, but instead they got distracted, showing each other silly moves and making each other laugh. They were just having fun.

During their second time playing it, when the music had stopped, both he and Richie had gone for the same seat. Richie had ended up in his lap refusing to get off, and even when Eddie tried pushing him, he held on for dear life, clutching the back of the chair so hard his knuckles turned white.

At some point the chair had started tipping back and forth with the weight of the two wrestling boys, none of them giving up without a fight. Stan had sighed a few moments later and stood up from his own chair so he could give it to Richie and they could resume the game, willingly losing the round. Eddie had ended up laughing so hard he fell off his own seat, feeling his cheeks get red with how amusing it all was and before he even registered what was happening, Stan had ran for the suddenly available seat and Eddie ended being the one to lose the game in the end. But despite that, he’d had so much fun he had completely forgotten about the awful smell of gasoline, only breathing in the amazing smell of chocolate cake his Ma had baked for them.

When they were tired from playing, they were ending the little celebration with a movie.

Eddie had wished for E.T. on VHS for his birthday since summer vacation. After Richie had gone to see it in the movies with his parents, it had been all he could talk about. When Eddie finally got to see him after coming home from the road trip, Richie kept doing new voices, lines Eddie had never heard before. And two quotes especially: “No douche bag talk in my house!” and “I’ll be right here” were on a continuous loop in Richie’s daily vocabulary, and Eddie was excited to finally see the movie for himself.

Richie had only seen E.T. that one time, but that didn’t stop him from quoting it whenever he had the chance. When the familiar quotes were actually said in the movie, they sounded nothing like Richie had been saying them for the last four months.

But still, Eddie enjoyed it a whole lot, giggling as Richie constantly talked over the movie. He’d say most of the cooler lines to himself, trying to sound like the different characters, repeating the ones he had forgotten from the first time watching it. Eddie found it more entertaining than the movie itself, giggling with every small comment. When the “I’ll be right here” line came up, Richie turned towards Eddie as he echoed the line with the movie, poking at Eddie’s forehead with his finger, a massive smile on his face.

Eddie had held Richie’s hand almost the entire time while the movie was playing, feeling comfort in the connection between their two palms.

And that had been the problem, hadn’t it? The reason why his Ma was angry in the first place, red in the face like a tomato and lightning flashing in her small eyes.

“Boys don’t hold hands with other boys”, she said for what seemed like the hundredth time, apparently never getting tired of that sentence. “It’s really bad, and you say you’ve held his hand before this too? Where other people have seen you? Do you know how that looks, Eddie? Because it’s _not_ good…” talking louder to stop him when Eddie opened his mouth to explain himself, “listen to me, Eddie! I don’t want you…”

And that’s when he stopped listening, her words like being hit in the face, the smell of gasoline stronger than ever, and her dress: that awful, awful dress. It was like she’d washed it in the stuff, letting it soak in a bucket of it before hanging it up to dry. Tears were burning behind his eyes, not only from being yelled at for doing something he hadn’t even known was wrong, but also (especially) the strong smell. It seemed like her words were pure gasoline and she was spitting drops of it onto his face, words like poison.

He didn’t want to listen, not wanting to believe the ugly words she was splattering. He remembered from when he had just turned five how she commented on the way a man on the television was dressed.

He’d been confused when he hadn’t even thought about the man’s clothing when he appeared on screen, not noticing how he was dressed differently than any other. What he noticed was only how colorful he looked, and Eddie had never thought of colors as a bad thing. What he remembered most was the sickened look on her face and the “men kissing men, ugh, disgusting” she’d scoffed.

Most of all, he remembered how that had made him feel, something uncomfortable building inside him, heart beating just that much faster and his chest filling with a new kind of pain he’d never felt before and didn’t quite understand.

It had almost felt like a rot inside of him. How someone could think of another person as disgusting just based on the clothes they wore made him sad, because what if someone looked at him and thought that way? Should he maybe stop wearing so much color? There was one special sweater he had in red and blue that he liked a lot.

At least that time it hadn’t been directed at him. She had looked at some stranger on the television, and even though Eddie found that unfair, as his Ma didn’t even know that stranger, Eddie himself didn’t have any relation to the man so it didn’t really matter too much. This time on the other hand, it was directed at him, and it was the same kind of pain, but it was _so_ much worse.

It was like a monster, whatever was behind her words. It was almost impossible to describe it, but what he felt was, unquestionably and without a doubt, fear. His Ma wasn’t a monster, he was well aware, but the nasty words she was spitting in his face might as well have come from one, and it was utterly terrifying.

Eddie was scared of a lot of monsters; throwing up, doctors, being disappointing, losing his friends, and not to forget the gasoline, all of them not being essentially specific, but instead abstract monsters. Yet, right now, most of all: _this_ monster was the scariest he’d come across, all the others dimming in comparison.

For a moment it was like she wasn’t the one yelling at him, it was the monster taking over, possessing her.

And that stupid _dress_! Its smell was stopping him from thinking clearly. Having to face one monster was enough, but the gasoline on top of that was too much.

His heart was beating so fast he was scared it might jump out, his insides stirring and stomach whining in discomfort. He could already taste the sour bile in his mouth, feel it on his tongue, and with the memories of the visit to the gas station and the horrible feeling of throwing up, he really didn’t want to do it again.

The last few months had been the worst of his life, the inescapable smell surrounding him at all times. Whenever it would hit him the hardest he could practically see the green smoke moving through the air like a snake and into his nose, just like in cartoons.

He was starting to struggle with breathing, the smell too strong. Trying to take a deep breath with his mouth, it was like he could taste it too and he gagged, throat closing up. An underlying tone of something burnt was to be smelled too, definitely coming from her, and he knew he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Ma”, he interrupted her, a single tear finally falling down his cheek. “I can’t… your dress smells like gasoline.”

Her rambles stopped instantly in the middle of a sentence, eyes narrowed and mouth slightly opened. She looked taken aback, cheeks flushed after all her yelling. “Wh- what?”

“It’s making me feel sick.” His voice was shaking.

“I…” she stopped. “What does that mean?” her voice hurt.

“Your dress smells so bad”, he cried.

Confused, she grabbed the dress from the top of her chest and stretched the fabric up to her nose, sniffing wetly. When she didn’t seem to sense anything out of the ordinary, she lifted her arms one at a time to smell underneath them. Her nose wrinkled slightly. “I can’t smell any gasoline, Eddie, you’re not making any sense.”

“I don’t mean to offend you, but it does!”

“No, Eddie!”

“Yes, it does!”

“Stop yelling!”

“But Ma…”

“Eddie, that’s enough!”

“I just really need to go to my room, please!” and before she could even react, he turned around and ran up the stairs, not bearing to be near her for another second. As soon as he was inside, he shut the door, leaning against it with his heart pounding.

He hadn’t yelled at his Ma since the gas station incident, but he couldn’t help it this time. If he hadn’t gotten away when he did, he knew for sure he would have thrown up. The nauseous feeling was still very much settled inside his stomach, his insides churning every few seconds, but his heart was already calming down after getting away from her, panic deflating.

Still breathing rapidly, he looked around his room. He knew he needed to get out of his house, get some air, and run maybe, just something to clear his stuffed head.

Making up his mind, he inhaled deeply and held his breath before opening his door again, refusing to let the smell into his senses. Running down the stairs he could already feel his chest tightening at the lack of air, the remaining panic still coursing through him. He hadn’t even held his breath for more than five seconds, and he was already struggling.

His Ma started talking the second she saw him running down the stairs, the smell seeming to break through to him even though he was holding his breath. But he couldn’t even register what she was saying, the blood pumping in his ears and drowning her out.

As he put on his sneakers in a hurry, thankful for the Velcro straps so he could get them on faster, she grabbed at his shoulder to get him to turn around. He yanked free immediately, barely remembering to grab his puffer jacket before he ran out the door.

It had started getting dark out, sky turning into a dark grayish blue. At least it wasn’t raining. Small puddles of dirty rainwater were to see everywhere around after the pour that morning, and the damp smell overshadowed the gasoline, and he could finally let air back into his system. It was a nice smell, one of his favorites: the smell of wet dirt. A tiny relieved smile broke out on his face, barely there, as he kept running.

“Eddie!” His Ma’s voice echoed down the street after him, but he couldn’t hear her. Adrenaline rushed through his little body, his peripheral vision disappearing as he heaved for air, seeming to drift into a dream and away from real life for a moment. He was running so fast it felt like he was flying, not able to feel his feet slamming against the ground underneath him even though he could hear it perfectly.

Was this a dream? It sure felt like it; a bad one, not one he’d like to draw.

He was outside Bill’s house when his body finally gave out, and he collapsed on the grass next to the Denbrough mailbox. No matter how much he breathed in and breathed out, no matter how deeply he tried inhaling, it didn’t seem like enough air got into his burning lungs. With time, the tunnel vision let go, welcoming reality again with open arms.

“Oh, jeez”, he muttered to himself, legs shaking as his exhaustion from the running caught up with him, a weird hurt in his thighs. A couple of moments passed as he collected himself, trying to force his breathing into a steady rhythm. For how long he lied there, he wasn’t sure. It could have been 40 seconds or it could have been 15 minutes. For a second he feared his Ma might come running, but then remembered she wouldn’t. She knew he’d be home sooner or later, and he knew for sure she was going to be mad when he stepped through their front door.

“E-Eddie?” The familiar voice of Bill broke through the silence, and he shot up quickly when he saw Bill’s dirty sneakers in front of him. “What’s guh-going on? Mom saw you through the kitchen window.”

Eddie breathed heavily as he looked at Bill, knowing he probably looked like a whole mess.

“I just need to talk to you”, he croaked.

Bill frowned, reaching out a hand to help Eddie up and back on his feet. “Sure, cuh-come on.” He gestured for Eddie to follow him into the house.

When they finally sat down on Bill’s bed after quickly saying hello to Mrs. Denbrough, Eddie sniffled slightly as he stayed quiet, struggling to form his sentences.

“I…” he paused, sniffling again. “I, uh, I’m having this problem at home.”

“What?” Bill asked.

“Lately, I seem to always smell gasoline everywhere.”

Bill cocked his head in confusion. “G-gasoline? Like from cars?”

“Yeah”, Eddie wiped under his nose with his finger. “After summer, I smell it everywhere, and it makes me feel sick all the time.”

“I duh-duh-don’t s-smell gasoline everywhere”, Bill voiced.

“No, I didn’t use to do that either, but now it’s all I can smell. And I don’t like cars too much anymore, and I’ve always loved cars.”

“Oh.” Bill didn’t seem to understand what Eddie meant; instead probably thinking he was stupid.

Eddie continued on anyways, needing to get it off his chest. “It’s especially bad at home, and Ma smells the worst.”

Silence settled over them for a few moments, thickening by the second.

“She kept yelling at me for holding Richie’s hand yesterday when we watched the movie, and I don’t understand why but the gasoline was so strong I had to get out.”

“Why duh-did sh-she yell at you for tha-that?” Bill wondered, eyebrows creasing.

“She says boys aren’t supposed to hold hands”, Eddie whispered, scared for Bill’s reaction, terrified he would agree and make Eddie feel wrong for wanting to hold hands with Richie.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie shrugged.

“But you a-and Richie hold h-hands all the tuh-time.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“My muh-mom or dad h-h-have nuh-uh-ever said that to m-me.”

“Yeah, not my Ma either until now.” Eddie knew it was because she hadn’t seen them do it before, and he hadn’t exactly told her they did it either. But he hadn’t thought it was wrong.

Bill looked thoughtful for a moment, silence settling over them. “Your mom is kuh-kinda crazy”, he joked, nudging at Eddie’s knees with his fist, trying to ease the tension.

Eddie gaped, but smiled anyways, knowing Bill was only kidding around. “No, she’s not!”

“She is.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yeah-huh.”

Eddie stopped. “She’s just…” a deep breath. “She has a lot of rules.”

“She’s s-strict.”

“I guess.”

“She yuh-yelled at you f-for holding Richie’s h-h-hand.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s ins-s-sane.”

“What?”

“Sh-she’s insane.” Bill was trying for a smile, but Eddie only shook his head.

“No.” He paused for a second. “She’s possessed, not insane.”

“Puh-possessed?” Bill furrowed his brows, biting down on the inside of his lower lip. “By what?”

“Monster.” There was no doubt in Eddie’s voice.

Bill nodded his head, thinking it over seriously. But then he cracked a messy smile. “Or demon.”

The two looked at each other for a second, air softening between them finally before cracking grins. Eddie’s eyes were so sore from the dried tears, their swollenness almost making his eyes shut as he smiled.

“No, but seriously”, Bill started. “When you s-s-smell gasoline, juh-just let me n-know, and I’ll huh-help get rid of it s-s-somehow.”

“Really?” Eddie asked hopefully.

“I th-th-think it’s all in your h-head.”

“How does that happen?”

“It’s puh-probably just your i-imagination.”

“Huh.”

“I think there’s a word for it, but I’m not sure”, Bill pondered.

That made sense. With his dreams and drawings, Eddie knew he had a creative and imaginative brain, always zoning out of what was really happening around him.

And reality wasn’t just what he could see, or what he could hear, but also the feeling of his toes digging into the mattress he was sitting on, noticing the softness of Bill’s comforter between his fingers. And reality was also the stale taste in his mouth from his spit and the saltiness of the tears on his lips as his tongue peaked out to wet them.

The only part of reality he had lost touch with was smells, but now that he thought about it, it was impossible to not sense: a distant smell of gravy from Bill’s family dinner and the familiar ‘Bill’s room’-smell that he’d gotten used to. And suddenly the gasoline wasn’t to be noticed at all anymore. Because of course it wasn’t really there. It never had been.

Whenever Eddie would zone out, drifting off into his dreams, he would always lose touch with the reality around him, staring off into space and not noticing that he was looking right at another person during class. That was when he’d lose contact with his sense of vision, not able to see what was really happening, but instead picturing things in his head that weren’t there. But as long as he was aware he was dreaming, he could always turn it off.

He would usually drift off whenever he didn’t want to face reality in front of him, most likely because it hurt too much. Gasoline appeared when reality was painful, accentuating the awfulness of it, but now that he knew it was all in his head, he could easily turn it off just like his dreams.

Eddie hesitated for a moment, thinking over his next words. While looking at Bill carefully, he studied Bill’s reaction carefully as he said what he said next. “She’s also said boys don’t kiss other boys.”

Bill didn’t respond at first, just looking at Eddie curiously. “You and Ruh- Richie have k-k-kissed?”

“What? _No_." Eddie frowned, worried how Bill would think that. Did he know about that one time when Richie had kissed his cheek over a year ago?

“Oh, I thought tha-that was what y-you meant.” Bill shrugged apologetically.

“No”, Eddie trailed off, fiddling with Bill’s comforter with his shaking hands. He hesitated, taking a couple breaths as he considered his next question. “But do you think boys kissing boys is bad?”

For some reason, even though the question terrified him, he needed to know the answer. And inside him he knew that it was super important to him that Bill didn’t think it was bad even though Eddie wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it himself yet.

“Uhm”, Bill seemed to think it over. “I duh-don’t understand why it wuh-would be bad.” Eddie felt his shoulders sink. If it was in relief he wasn’t sure.

“But kuh-kissing is gross anyways”, Bill added, wrinkling his nose.

Eddie let out a small laugh at that. “Yeah, it kinda is, isn’t it?” he agreed, nodding his head. The air seemed fully light now, no monster hiding in the corner of the room.

“I think I understand w-what you muh-muh-mean by gasoline n-now, though”, Bill said, voice suddenly quiet.

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, scooting closer.

Bill’s gaze dropped to the floor quickly, his thumbs scraping at his own fingernails. He looked distressed. “My puh-parents s-smell of guh-g-gasoline sometimes too.” The admission hung in the air for a moment, processing in Eddie’s brain.

“Oh.”

That fact made Eddie feel a little better, comfort settling inside him at the fact that the two of them could relate to each other. Maybe he wasn’t so alone after all.

Eddie was just seven, his imaginative dreams more logical than reality. To him it only made sense that Bill could shut off the gasoline smell just like he could, so that was what he thought.

It was not until Eddie was twelve that he would come to understand what little six-year old Bill Denbrough had truly meant that day in November 1982.

And when Eddie went to bed that night, he was scared to fall asleep and be taken over by nightmares. Images of a dark monster following him were carved on the inside of his eyelids, and he could see it every time he closed his eyes. And it was spreading its darkness everywhere it reached, stealing the colors from around. He could already see the green grass and the bright sun turning gray, and the red and blue colors of his favorite shirt started washing away, turning into black. And the bright world he lived in, where he could see Bill and Stan play and Richie smile at him with that special smile, lost its light, replaced by darkness so heavy he couldn’t see, couldn’t smile, couldn’t feel.

But when his tired eyes couldn’t stay open any longer, the nightmare never came. The fear inside him disappeared when, in his dream, a tree stretched its branches into his room through the window, inviting him outside. And in the blue night the moon was shining its silvery light, a thousand shooting stars flickering over the sky.

He could make a thousand wishes.

“ _The world has gone mad_ ”, someone whispered next to him. Eddie didn’t even have to look to know that it was Richie.


	4. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie has control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took way too long. I'm nervous as hell posting this chapter. Sorry if it's bad, I've rewritten it twice and I just can't look at it anymore.
> 
> Anyways, hope you like it hehehe

_“Your dreams that we buried,_  
_they grow when it rains;_  
_dreams that grow like a flower field._  
_And one very special and beautiful day,_  
_I’ll pick your dreams ‘till the ground is bare”_

 

 

There were two things that came with being a magician.

The first was the need to be in control of a situation. It was important to know how to do different tricks down to every minor detail, knowing all the different steps, seeing where and how everything was laid out. Organizing the next steps to the trick, planning ahead every move. Being in control required skill and resistance of distractions. All in all, being a magician was simply being the one _doing_ the trick, not the one _getting_ tricked.

The second was discretion. A magician could get away with the most absurd tricks, the audience incapable of figuring out the secrets behind them. Never noticing the magician’s secret moves, instead too caught up in the diversions, where the magician wanted their attention. A magician would be turning cards and transferring the small objects from one place to another without anyone seeing, different maneuvers that would be invisible to the typical watcher.

In real life Richie wasn’t really the best at neither of those two things (as he tended to get distracted a lot as well as stumble over his own two feet, what the hell was discretion?), but when it came to his magic, he was an expert. The magic too important, Richie too invested, nothing could interfere. No yelling from outside his window, poster falling off of his bedroom walls because of old tape or “Richie, I made pancakes for lunch!” could ever take him out of it.

When he was in it, nothing else mattered. And if Richie’s success in fooling his friends and parents with his tricks was anything to go by, he was getting pretty good.

As he was practicing his magic one cold September afternoon, he could feel himself drift off into that world again. He’d been practicing a lot that summer, learning a lot of new tricks he could only ever dream of doing the year before.

Stan was sitting by Richie’s desk, working on some homework that Richie had already finished. They were eight years old.

A groan snapped Richie out of his magical daze and he looked up just fast enough to catch the sight of Stan’s head hitting the desk with a bang.

“I like math, but it’s _so_ hard”, he grumbled, head tilting to the side to look at Richie. “I just can’t solve this one problem.”

“Why don’t you look in the back of the text book, all the answers are there?” Richie tried, putting his cards down in case he needed to go over and help.

Stan just sighed. “I already did, but it only says the actual answer, not how to solve it. I know the answer is supposed to be 41, but I don’t know how to get there.”

Standing up, Richie made his way over to Stan, poking at his arm so he’d scoot over and they could share the one chair Richie had in his room.

“26,5?” Richie asked with furrowed brows as he looked at Stan’s attempted calculation.

“I don’t know!” Stan yelled out in frustration, arms flying over his head.

After taking a closer look, Richie recognized the problem from already having solved it earlier and he quickly saw what Stan had done wrong. “Do you remember what Mrs. Callahan said about what orders to calculate the numbers? You’re supposed to do the multiplications and divisions first. So…”

He leaned over to take the pencil out of Stan’s hand, solving the problem all the while explaining. When he was done, Stan was nodding his head with raised eyebrows.

“Thanks, Richie.”

They smiled at each other before Richie went back to his cards, leaving Stan to finish his homework. But after a few more minutes, he stopped focusing on the magic again, a question itching on his tongue.

“Hey Stan?”

Stan hummed in acknowledgement as he continued scribbling in his notebook.

“You know that talent show at school?”

Stan looked up, closing his book and turning all of his attention over to Richie. “Yeah?”

“I think maybe I wanna sign up.”

“With what?”

“You know”, Richie was waving his hand around as if it was obvious. “Magic.”

The yearly talent show had just happened at their school, always in the end of September. The entire time of the show, all Richie had been able to think about was standing on that stage and put on his own little magic show, impressing everyone at school with his tricks.

Stan stayed quiet for a little while. “Next year?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Gives me lotsa time to prepare myself.”

“Sure, you should do it.”

Richie smiled. “You think?”

“Absolutely.”

With a quick breath, he picked at the carpet he was laying on, finally getting to his point. “Would you be my assistant?”

Looking over at Stan for his reaction, he propped up on his elbows, head in his hands with a questionable yet hopeful grin on his face.

“Assistant?”

“Yeah!” Richie exclaimed. “You know how all magicians have a person on stage to present the different things and help and all that!”

With pursed lips and narrowed eyes Stan crossed his arms. “Me?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t know a single thing about magic!”

“Well, that’s the point, we've got time and I’ll teach you!” Richie sat up in excitement. “I can’t teach you all the tricks of course, _a magician never reveals his secrets_ , ya know?” he added with a funny voice, “– anyways, you’d only have to learn how to work with me, and help me. I’ve seen it on TV lotsa times and assistants don’t do any tricks, they’re just helping and stuff.”

“You gonna sow me in half?” A skeptical look took over Stan’s face.

Richie laughed loudly at that. “No, of course not! I’m not _that_ good!”

Stan only narrowed his eyes.

“It’s just simple tricks, I promise, nothing I haven’t already shown you!”

No immediate reaction, Stan keeping quiet for a few moments while he seemed to think it over. Then with a sigh, he nodded his head, and even though he rolled his eyes, a small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Fine.”

Richie gasped in glee. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Like, you’ll be my assistant after too? Not only for the talent show?”

Stan shrugged. “Sure, as long as you don’t sow me in half.”

“Like I said, I’m not that good”, he smirked at Stan, “yet.”

A look of horror crossed Stan’s face as he how Richie’s face transformed into a look of pure thrill. “Oh, no, no!”

“I haven’t even said anything yet!” Richie defended, eyes wide.

“Even though I just agreed to be your assistant, I’ll never agree to be sown in half!”

“But wouldn’t it be _cool_?” Richie exclaimed, dragging out the vowel in the last word.

“No!” Stan was shaking his head frantically.

“But it’s not even real, you won’t actually be sown in half!” Richie was waving his arms around, shaking with the excitement at the realization that he’d found his life-long magic assistant.

“What if you do it wrong?”

“I won’t!”

“But what _if_?”

“Stan”, Richie looked at him, mustering all the serious he could into one look, but he only ended up laughing instead. “I won’t.”

Stan laughed too. “But just know that I’ll kill you if you kill me.”

Richie furrowed his brows. “But… you’d be sown in half, you’d b…”

“No”, Stan interrupted. “Even only with half a body, I’ll kill you.”

“That’s not possi…”

“Yes”, Stan stared at him. “And if not, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

Stan gaped. “But I’ll be making your life miserable.”

“Awe, Stan, you could never make my life miserable.”

“You make _my_ life miserable”, Stan muttered, but despite his words, he was smiling as the two of them locked eyes. Richie knew he was just joking.

The following weeks they rehearsed a few tricks together in Richie’s room. Even though Stan was rusty in the beginning, he got the hang of it fairly quickly. It was mostly just card tricks Richie knew at that point, but they’d briefly practicing the ‘pulling a rabbit out of a hat’-trick, even if it was just with a plushie.

They’d come to an agreement that card tricks might be a little boring for a show like that, the entire school watching, even though Richie needed some convincing to understand that. Together they decided the rabbit-trick might be the best to learn, Richie already having it written down in one of his books.

Richie’s parents were the first to see them perform that trick, and as it was finished, the two of them were clapping loudly (“that’s how you do it, boys!” Richie’s dad had yelled, the sound of his hands slapping together exploding throughout the room), and standing up from their chairs. Richie hadn’t stopped smiling that entire day.

And then it was time to show it to Eddie and Bill, the two of them with sitting on Richie’s bed in anticipation. Richie had with a beating heart introduced the trick, Stan smiling next to him like the professional magic assistant he’d become. When Richie removed his hat to give to Stan so he could present its empty inside, his hands were shaking with nerves.

They’d rehearsed it to death, successfully doing the trick right every time, so Richie wasn’t quite sure why he was so nervous.

But despite the fact that his clammy hands managed to drop the hat once, when Richie pulled out the small plush rabbit from his hat, the two boys on the bed squealed in delight. Their eyes had been wide, the two looking at each other with mouths agape.

Then the clapping began, both of them grinning like madmen on top of Richie’s four-leaf clover comforter.

“Do it again!” Eddie exclaimed, nothing short of excitement and disbelief on his face.

And who was Richie to say no to Eddie?

So they did it again, repeating the trick with even more skill than the first time. Practicing in front of an audience was the best kind of practice anyways.

“Sh-shouldn’t the ruh-r-rabbit be real, though?” Bill asked after, making Richie furrow his brows.

“We’ll get there someday.”

They weren’t going to perform anything in front of the school until next year either so they had lots of time to learn how to do it with a real bunny. It was on Richie’s wish list for Christmas.

All in all, doing magic did something to Richie; it filled him with a kind of warmth he hadn’t ever found in anything else, happiness coursing through his veins. Sharing it with Stan made it even more special. It almost felt like it was they were their own team.

At this point, Stan knew the secrets to Richie’s tricks almost as well as Richie did, even though he didn’t know how to perform them himself. It wasn’t something Richie ever thought he’d needed, but having Stan next to him, made it so much more unique.

The increasing closeness with Stan had lifted his spirits after the tiny void inside his heart had hallowed out that last year. There had been a subtle heaviness in his chest that had appeared without him understanding what it was.

Sometimes Richie would stop to think about why he was feeling the way he was, where it came from, what was this uncomfortable feeling that made smiling just that tiny much harder? More than once he’d wracked his brain for answers, but it always ended up with the same one.

At some point in the past years, Eddie had started pulling away from him. Not much, but just enough to make it as clear as day, a harsh contrast to how it had used to be.

Maybe it wasn’t even pulling away necessarily, but more the fact that Eddie had started getting hesitant to holding Richie’s hand.

It was only recently that they had started spending less time with each other, and most of the reason was Richie’s constant plans with Stan. And those plans hadn’t become so frequent hadn’t it been for Eddie’s lack of affection, if that was something Richie could call their handholding at all.

He’d gotten so used to it, reaching for Eddie’s hand had become the most natural thing in the world. Every time the two had linked fingers, it was like a safety blanket, like some sort of electric power coursed out of Eddie’s fingers and into his and out of his fingers into Eddie’s; magnetism, bringing the two boys together.

It was confusing having that taken away. No longer was it a feeling of safety to reach for Eddie’s hand, but instead fear of rejection, that Eddie wouldn’t grab his hand.

When it started, it had been out of the blue, unexpected. Richie would reach out a hand, expecting Eddie to take it like he always did, but instead Eddie like he hadn’t seen it. It was obvious, the way Eddie’s gaze landed on Richie’s hand before quickly looking elsewhere, as if whatever boring bird flying outside the window was super important to observe each movement of. It was all too strange and unnatural for Eddie to play it off as casual. Sometimes he was pretty sure that Eddie knew that Richie saw, but kept the charade up anyways.

Richie had on purpose tried to make it impossible for Eddie to pretend not to see, reaching out a hand and placing it directly in Eddie’s line of vision. Ever time, Eddie would quietly stop himself, seeming to consider whether to take it or not just because he knew he couldn’t ignore it now, the pretending wouldn’t work. Those times, even though he’d hesitate, Eddie would take Richie’s hand. But now it didn’t feel the same because Eddie only accepted Richie’s hand because he probably felt like he had to.

Richie never wanted to force Eddie, he wanted Eddie to want to hold hands just tot avoid being questioned about it.

Eddie knew that Richie was hurt from it. His parents had told Richie that there was no shame in letting his true feelings show, and so he never disguised his facial features, letting the hurt show in his eyes (not like it was possible to hide it anyways). For sure Eddie could see it.

More than once he had thought about asking why, if he’d done anything wrong, but instead he’d backed out every time. He hoped for Eddie to tell him on his own.

Richie was sure he would understand if he knew.

But then there were the blessed few moments where Eddie would grab his hand back with no hesitation, smiling warmly in that way Richie loved. Gosh, how those moments warmed his heart, and for a moment Richie would always forget how it wasn’t always like that.

Spending more time with Stan had really helped that hallowed feeling lately, the two boys growing closer. 

Very recently, Stan had started gaining an interest for detective work. Magnifying glass, research notepad and a fingerprint set were only some of the things in his detective collection. Stan had even bought sunglasses with small mirrors on the inside that made it possible to see what was happening behind him, like small rearview mirrors.

There had been some days where the two of them would run around, giggling as they passed the glasses back and forth.

There had been one specific day where the two of them had walked in the middle of the road, Richie convincing Stan it would be a good idea as they could see the cars coming from behind them anyways. A mom of one of their classmates had seen them and called both of their parents. Richie had gotten yelled at the second he stepped foot into the house, his mom having been called while they were out. He’d had to do some extra chores that month, groaning as he folded socks and put away the dishes.

Still, his punishment hadn’t been as bad as Stan’s. Stan’s parents had set a stricter curfew from after that as well as cut down on his monthly allowance. And the most horrible, he wasn’t allowed to watch TV for two weeks! Richie had truly gasped.

Still, after that one little misstep, they felt unstoppable together, taking on the world with their magic and their detective work.

Instead of being a lonely trickster, Richie suddenly had a partner next to him. Richie felt relieved sharing his control with Stan, tricksters going around and tricking everyone else.

They were discreet and they were in control, not only with magic and detective stuff, but now also in life. They were always the ones doing the trick, not the ones getting tricked. Stan seemed to love this just as much as Richie did.

There had been a specific day with Eddie that Richie remembered well simply because it had been one of the last days of his one-man trickster shenanigans before Stan joined alongside him.

That day, Richie and Eddie were playing hide and seek next to the plantation just outside of Derry. They were there on a day-trip during a weekend in the middle of July, Richie’s parents driving them out there.

So when Richie was counting to a hundred and he heard Eddie scramble away to hide, the need to be in control took over and he couldn’t help but spread his fingers and peak through the small gaps between them. Still continuing to count loudly ( _forty-two, forty-three_ ), he could see Eddie stop in the middle of the reeds, looking around frantically for a place to hide before changing his direction, running the other way instead. For a quick second he looked back at Richie, and Richie pushed his fingers together in panic, shutting his eyes harshly and hoping Eddie didn’t catch him looking ( _fifty-nine, sixty_ ).

He wouldn’t call it cheating exactly; it was more like tricking; control and discretion. And with his practice in those two, he was good at not getting caught.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to win fair and square, but it was hard letting go of the control he’d gotten so used to having. He was supposed to be the one doing the tricking, and if he’d let Eddie run around without peaking, he’d lose that control.

It was quiet from Eddie for too long and Richie almost gave himself away, knowing he’d been caught. But then he heard Eddie resume shuffling and he opened up the tiniest of space between his ring and pinkie finger, just enough to see Eddie’s figure rummaging around again. The sun was shining brightly, and Eddie’s blonde locks reflected the light, the tiny breeze making it move on top of his head like ocean-waves. There had been that one vacation to California a few summers ago where during a sunset, the golden sky was mirrored in the water, and that was what Richie was reminded of, looking at Eddie now.

“Eighty-three, eighty-four”, he continued loudly, feeling his throat being filled with the power from his voice.

He watched as Eddie turned again, seeming to look for something in the reeds to hide behind, but Richie could see just as well as Eddie that there was nothing, and Eddie was running out of time.

“Ninety-two, ninety-three!”

He saw Eddie look at Richie for a brief moment, before anxiously noticing a place where the reeds reached a little higher and he practically dived for it. Soon, he was out of Richie’s sight, hidden among the straws.

“A hundred!” Richie removed his hands from his face, pretending to look around confusedly as if he hadn’t seen all of Eddie’s moves. “Ready or not, here I come!”

For a second he for sure thought he saw the reeds move where Eddie had hid, but then saw they were moving everywhere across the field because of the light wind. He pretended to look other places first as to not raise any suspicion, quietly giggling to himself. He looked behind a tree, scanned between the bushes that were in the opposite direction before slowly making his way into the reeds.

Trying not to walk too directly towards Eddie’s location, he walked in a weird zigzag. “Huh”, he said loudly, wanting Eddie to believe he was struggling, and for a quick moment he was pretty sure he heard Eddie’s hushed laughter.

“Oh! I think I hear you”, Richie warned, moving towards the taller reeds now. “I’m gonna get you now.”

Right before reaching Eddie’s hiding spot, he jumped forward with a roar, expecting Eddie to yelp. Instead he was met with nothing, and he looked down on the unexpected empty ground. Eddie wasn’t there.

“Oh.”

That was when he stopped pretending, and he looked around genuinely confused this time. Eddie must have crawled on his stomach in the reeds, and Richie groaned when he realized that Eddie could be practically anywhere.

He’d already wasted a good five minutes faking his seeking, and now he’d managed to let Eddie get away.

And in just a few seconds, he’d gone from being the trickster to being the one getting tricked, all control slipping through his fingers like sand.

After sighing to himself quietly, he continued his search, for real this time. Eliminating the possibilities down to just the reeds, Richie walked around in them for quite a while, starting to lose track of where he’d already looked. It all looked the same.

More time passed as he continued looking, pretty sure he’d been walking all over the field, looking between each tiny little reed. He sighed in frustration, breath heavy in his lungs.

“Rich, everything alright?”

He turned around to find his dad looking at him, seeming to have walked over from where he and Richie’s mom had been relaxing in the sun.

“Yeah”, he shrugged. “We’re just playing hide and seek, and I can’t find Eddie anywhere.” His dad laughed when he pouted.

“I’ve noticed you walking around for quite some time now.” He put his hands on his hips. “Maybe it’s time to give up?”

Richie gasped, clutching at his chest dramatically. “No way, I’m not letting him win.”

And in a way he knew that he probably should. After all, Eddie had managed to out-trick Richie, probably laughing at him somewhere from his hiding spot. It should also be an obvious win for Eddie simply by default because of Richie’s cheating.

“Think about it, bud”, his dad winked before walking away again, leaving Richie alone. He didn’t even know for how long he’d been seeking for, but it seemed like at least an hour.

“Eddie?” he yelled out finally. “Uhm, I can’t find you. Can you maybe… just... give me a hint or something?”

Even though he’d basically given up, he didn’t want Eddie to just reveal himself now. He just needed a little guidance to lead him to Eddie’s hiding spot.

Listening carefully, there was only silence apart from the muffled chatter from his parents in the distance and the light breeze cooling down his hot cheeks.

“I’m here”, came a quiet voice, almost a whisper.

Richie’s head whipped around towards the voice, narrowing his eyes as he looked through the nearest reeds.

“Huh”, he muttered to himself, starting to walk, and it didn’t take long for him to see it. The reeds had been moving with the breeze this whole time, but there was a spot pretty close that was moving just a little differently, specifically: against the wind. Smiling crookedly, he sneaked forward, trying hard to stay quiet. He wanted to scare Eddie this time.

A quiet giggle could be heard, and that was when Richie saw something blue move: Eddie’s sweater.

“Found you!” Richie roared, jumping on top of Eddie and latching onto his back where he was crouching.

But Eddie didn’t yell in surprise, probably expecting Richie to find him. Instead he only giggled. “Fine, you won.”

He was wearing a flower crown made out of the straws (Richie wasn’t sure it could even be called a flower crown), messy with thin reeds sticking out in every direction. The pink sunglasses Richie had given him were tangled up in there too.

“Actually, I think _you_ won.”

Eddie’s brows raised in surprise. “But you found me.”

“Yeah, but it took me too long, you hid too well.”

“Oh”, Eddie’s cheeks were a pretty pink color, freckles more prominent than usual after the warm summer they’d had. “Uh, is it my turn to seek now then?”

Richie shook his head, tired after all the walking. “Nah, you’re too good at this game.”

The smile blossoming on Eddie’s face was blinding, blonde locks shimmering with the sunlight, shining.

Richie never wanted to forget that image.

When October rolled around, and Halloween got closer, Richie had already several ideas for costumes he’d like to wear. There was the magician costume with a top hat and cape, but he felt like that was too obvious now (he’d worn it the last two years). And then there was the Elliott costume with the red hoodie (Richie didn’t have the right hair to be Elliott, too curly, so he wasn’t quite sure on that either). Then there was Richie’s favorite idea: Tod from The Fox and the Hound, and most importantly, he wanted Eddie to be Copper so they could match.

The two of them both loved that movie (“it’s like us!” Eddie had exclaimed the first time Richie showed it to him), and Richie was sure Eddie would love to dress up like those two.

As he sat with his friends at lunch at school, the four of them were discussing their outfits.

“I think I’ll go as a detective”, Stan said, sipping at his water. “Maybe add some blood or something.”

Richie gasped and pushed at Stan’s arm. “What if you’re a detective investigating a murder, but then it’s all just a trick ‘cause the detective is also the killer!”

Stan gaped at him. “Yes!”

"Killer detective!”

“Killer detective!” Stan echoed, the two of them high-fiving over the table.

Eddie scrunched his nose, but Bill nodded approvingly.

“Yeah, th-that would be cool! I’m nuh-nuh-not sure what I want to wuh-wear at all.”

“I have a red hoodie that looks like Elliott’s from E.T. if you want to borrow that?” Richie offered. “You have the right hair to be Elliott.” He was trying not to sound bitter over it.

“Oh!” Bill’s eyes grew wide. “That’s actually puh-perfect! Thanks, Ruh-Richie.”

They smiled at each other.

“I don’t know if I’m going this year”, Eddie piped up, sitting slumped in his seat and poking at his lunch. Richie’s head whipped around to look at him, shock evident on his face.

“What? Why?” Stan asked, furrowing his brows.

Eddie shrugged. “I don’t have a costume, and I don’t know, my Ma doesn’t like Halloween. Says all that candy is bad for me.”

“But…” Richie looked around frustratingly, suddenly desperate. “But Eddie, I have a great costume idea for us!”

He was still unsure of how to approach Eddie sometimes, but he wanted this too much to not at least try.

Eddie looked up at him, confusion in his eyes. “What?”

Richie bit his lip with a nervous smile, shrugging his shoulders. “I was thinking maybe I could be Tod and you could be Copper?”

Eddie’s eyes lit up immediately, the gloominess gone and replaced by sparkles. “Oh!”

“Wait, that’s the two from The Fox and the Hound, right?” Stan asked.

“Yeah!” Eddie raved before Richie could answer. “I’ve always thought they reminded me of Richie and me, and Copper is my favorite! But I also love Tod ‘cause he’s such a pretty red color, and I always cry at that one part where that woman leaves him in the forest.”

Richie was grinning from ear to ear listening to Eddie ramble. “Let’s do it then.”

Sometimes Richie almost felt too old to love that movie so much, being so close to nine and all, but it was only recently that he’d shown the movie to Eddie, and he’d loved it so much that Richie had rediscovered his own love for it too.

As Eddie ran to throw away his empty lunch bag, Bill leaned over to meet Richie’s gaze. “Aren’t Halloween kuh-costumes supposed to be s-scary?”

Richie shrugged. “Eddie loves that movie a lot, besides Elliott isn’t scary either.”

“Yeah, but E.T. is s-sort of a scary muh-movie.”

Richie frowned. “No, it’s not.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s not, Bill”, Stan repeated, smiling in amusement.

Bill poked out his tongue at him playfully.

“This is the best idea ever, Rich!” Eddie was beaming so brightly when he came running back that Richie almost wished he had his sunglasses, but then again, he’d never want to darken Eddie’s light.

With Eddie smiling so dazzlingly, Richie realized that Eddie was right; it really was a good idea. Probably the best idea he’d ever had.

Together with his parents, Richie found what he thought to be the perfect fox-costume. It wasn’t Tod exactly, but as close as he could get. Small red ears and a full-body suit in the same color (almost), and with some alterations from his mom, it fitted him perfectly. She even made a tail with a white tip and everything.

When the 31st of October came around, his mom had bought theater makeup and was planning on making both him and Eddie over before they went out trick or treating. Richie was already fully dressed up in his costume, hair newly washed so his curls had extra volume.

“You’re gonna look so adorable!” She gushed when he came out of his room. Stroking the top of his head, she yelled for his dad to come see.

Richie swatted her hand away, giggling. “Mom, stop.”

The ringing of the doorbell interrupted them, and Richie sprinted for the door. Somewhere in the distance his mom yelled “careful!” after him. Not wasting any time he tore the door open, holding the handle in a firm grip.

Eddie was wearing a hooded costume with long ears, blonde waves poking out of the top. He didn’t look exactly like Copper either, but the point was still there.

“Wow!” Richie exclaimed, rushing at Eddie for a hug. “We’re gonna look so cool!”

With a happy laugh, Eddie pulled away, seeming to look at Richie’s fox-ears that were poking out of his nest of red hair. “Yeah!”

After getting their makeup done by Richie’s mom (and after being taken a bajillion pictures of, in addition to being cooed at by his parents for half an hour), they were finally off, Stan and Bill waiting for them at Stan’s house.

When they arrived, the two were already outside in their costumes, empty bags ready in their hands. Stan was dressed in a detective hat and what had to be an old coat of his dad’s. As he got closer, he saw how Stan had accessorized: with a moustache and magnifying glass in his hand, his hands covered in red.

“Isn’t it disgusting having that stuff all over your hands? You can’t touch the candy”, Eddie pointed to the fake blood, head cocking to the side.

“No, 'cause look”, Stan said, matter of factly, and turned his hands for them to see. His arms and hands might be drenched in dried blood, but his palms were clean.

“Huh”, Eddie pushed his white-painted lips together, seeming to think it over before nodding carefully, defeated.

“Sh-should we guh-go?” Bill asked, holding up his bag, an excited smile on his face. Somehow, he’d managed to look even more like Elliott than Richie had even thought was possible, and for a second he wished that he’d dressed as E.T. That sure would have been a cool set of matching costumes. Then again, Tod was a whole lot easier to execute.

It was close to 7:30pm when Stan had to go home, his strict curfew still very much in motion, and Bill also had to leave just after. Richie had completely forgotten about time, originally having planned something for them to do after trick-or-treating.

In the end only Eddie was left standing next to him, the two just having walked Bill to his house. He was toeing at the ground, gaze flickering around and looking ready to head home.

“Do you wanna hang out?” Richie asked in a hurry before Eddie could open his mouth to announce his goodbye.

With furrowed brows, Eddie narrowed his eyes at him. “Uh…”

“I wanna show you something.”

Eddie looked down at his fumbling hands, fingers picking at the flakes of skin around his nails. “Ma wants me home by 8.”

“We’ll be back by then”, Richie lied. They wouldn’t be back by then.

There was a hope blooming in his chest, fluttering its wings and making his heartbeat quicken. Sure, he wouldn’t have minded having Stan and Bill there, but this was the first time in a while he had Eddie to himself and he wanted to drag it out for as long as he could.

“You sure?” Eddie seemed to genuinely consider it despite not knowing at all what Richie wanted to show him. It made Richie feel some type of way, Eddie trusting him like that.

With that thought, Richie sighed, defeated. “Okay no, we won’t be back by 8.”

He could see the frown on Eddie’s face slowly deepening. “Why would you lie?”

Richie shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, I just really wanted you to say yes, and I knew you’d say no if I didn’t lie.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry.”

Time passed as the two of them stood in silence, neither knowing what to say.

“Let me follow you home at least”, Richie offered then, starting to make his way towards Eddie’s house, tripping on his own feet just a little. Not enough to fall, but enough to make an embarrassed flush pool in his cheeks.

“No, wait.”

He turned around abruptly at Eddie’s words.

“Huh?”

“I can miss curfew.” He was smiling shyly at Richie, eyes soft in the yellow shine from the streetlights.

“Really?”

“Yeah, let’s just go before I start freaking out and change my mind.”

Together they started walking down the street with Richie leading the way, heavy bags filled with all sorts of candy in their arms. After some time filled with quietness, Eddie started rambling about his Ma.

Richie wanted to hug him. Because of how amazing his own parents were in comparison, it was impossible for him to fully understand what Eddie was feeling, but he nodded along anyway, feeling sad at just the thought of his parents not being the way they were.

“She’s gonna get so mad.”

“We don’t have to do this, you know”, Richie tried reassuringly after having listened to Eddie worry. He didn’t want Eddie to leave though. “We can still go home.”

“I don’t usually ever miss curfew or leave the house without her permission.”

Richie raised his eyebrows at the choice of words. “Usually?”

“I…” Eddie stopped for a moment. “I ran away one night a while ago, like two years ago or something.”

“Huh”, Richie frowned, searching through his brain for the memory, but coming up with nothing. “I don’t remember that?”

“I never told you about it.”

“Oh.”

Not wanting to show how much that stung, Richie cast his gaze downwards to hide the hurt he knew was for sure showing in his eyes.

“Uh…” Eddie’s voice was weak. “It doesn’t matter.”

Richie didn’t know how to respond to that and the two of them kept walking, something awkward hanging in the air.

A sniff brought Richie’s attention to Eddie just in time to see him wipe at his eyes as the memory seemed to come back to him.

“Eddie…” Richie started, but stopped when he didn’t know how to continue. He scuffed his shoe against the pavement underneath, tiny pieces of rock scraping underneath his foot. Both Stan and Bill were so much better at comforting. Richie really wished they were there now.

Eddie was starting to work himself up, breaths coming out shorter in an ugly hysteria. They weren’t walking anymore, the two boys stood right outside the local antique shop.

From somewhere in the distance, children’s laughter could be heard (probably other trick-or-treaters), the sound echoing through the air between the dark buildings surrounding them. The sound of laughter was one of Richie’s favorites, and deep inside him a short wave of endorphins coursed through his veins for a second at the sound. But as quick as it appeared, it was gone, and he was brought back to watching Eddie’s miserable state, all specks of happiness gone with the snap of a finger.

“It’s okay”, Richie said because it was the only thing he could think of and he reached out his hand to place on Eddie’s shoulder, trying to keep his own voice calm. “Don’t cry.”

“She’s just so unfair sometimes”, Eddie gasped between breathy sobs.

Never in his life had Richie felt more helpless, standing there and watching his Eddie cry. Something snapped inside his chest, and for a second Richie feared his heart might be bleeding. Was that possible?

And in an instant he needed Eddie to stop crying, Richie feeling his own hands starting to shake as all he could do was stare at Eddie’s hands pushing harshly into his tear-stained face.

 _Please stop_ , he thought, shutting his own eyes harshly as he felt tears burning behind them. _Please stop please stop please stop_.

He wanted to slap himself. Could he possibly be more selfish, wanting Eddie to stop crying just because Richie didn’t know how to handle it? Stop crying because it made _Richie_ uncomfortable, because it hurt _Richie_ to see Eddie in pain?

Trying to pull himself together, he placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder with a deep breath. “If she ever makes you sad, you can always come to me. My parents love ya.”

Eddie’s red-rimmed eyes peaked out between his fingers, and Richie widened his eyes in a look he hoped was comforting.

“I love having you over”, he continued, shrugging slightly to distract from how fast his heart was still hammering.

Slowly, Eddie removed his hands from his face, lips bitten raw and cheeks flushed. "Thanks", he mumbled.

Silence settled over them for a moment, Eddie’s heavy breaths the only sound to be heard. Richie’s hand was still on his shoulder, unconsciously rubbing in circles, light touches on the furry dog-suit. Barely feeling the bone of Eddie’s shoulder through the thick fabric, Richie let his hand glide down Eddie’s entire arm, the costume soft against his fingers, before reaching his wrist. With Eddie’s hesitation of holding hands lately, Richie held onto it gently, making it easy for Eddie to pull away if he wanted.

He pushed down the hurt feeling when Eddie let his own hand fall out of Richie’s light grasp. Swallowing down a shaking sigh, Richie forced a tiny smile onto his face. “You okay?”

With a nod and eyes locked on the ground underneath, he avoided Richie’s gaze just like he usually did after rejecting Richie’s offer of holding hands. “Yeah.” His voice was barely audible, just a whisper mixing in with the sound of the breeze.

Richie gestured with his head to keep walking after Eddie had calmed down. “Do you still wanna do this or do you wanna go home?”

Eddie shook his head desperately. “Not home.”

“You sure?”

A last wet sniff as Eddie wiped at his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t wanna go home, wanna hang out with you.”

A smile broke out on Richie’s face, he couldn’t help it. Then with a gesture to keep walking and a confirming nod from Eddie, the two stepped up next to each other again.

As they kept on walking, the sky dark above them, they both nibbled on the pieces of candy they’d collected throughout the night. During the next couple of minutes, Eddie managed to collect himself, a content smile on his face. He was sucking on a red lollipop, the white paint on his lips starting to wear off.

“Is that strawberry-flavored?” Richie asked, munching loudly on gummies. With Eddie’s bad mood, he wanted to distract him from the thought of his mom. Even though Richie hadn’t been planning anything spectacular, he wanted Eddie to enjoy it properly.

“Dunno”, Eddie shrugged. “Haven’t thought about it, just tastes like red candy.”

“I like the blue taste better.”

“I know”, Eddie smiled at him, red lips barely quirked upwards, eyes just briefly locking with Richie’s. “But I don’t like how it turns my tongue blue.”

“Yeah.” Richie’s feet were dragging on the ground with every step. If his mom had been there she’d be scolding him for ruining the soles of his shoes. “That’s kinda what I like about it.”

“I used to think so too, but it takes so long before it goes away”, Eddie continued. “Ma got so mad one time when I got home with my lips all blue.”

Richie’s shoulders tensed at the mention of Eddie’s mom again, and he looked over, noticing how Eddie’s face had turned pouty. He needed to say something, anything to change the subject, but Eddie opened his mouth to continue before he could.

“She thought it was ‘cause I was cold. It didn’t even help when I told her it was candy, she just yelled at me for eating sugar without her permission.” He laughed bitterly, eyes locked harshly on the ground beneath. With hands clutching his candy bag, turning white, it seemed for a moment like he was going to throw it away. But instead he opened it up to take out a chocolate, pushing it into his mouth.

Richie could only watch, eyebrows high, not knowing how to respond. It wasn’t like him to not be able to say anything, but the topic of Eddie’s mom always seemed to make him uncomfortable as it had been proven that entire night. There was always something in Eddie’s eyes when talking about his mom, and Richie was scared of it. He said a lot of wrong things all the time, but when it came to Sonia Kaspbrak, he didn’t dare say a word.

“Do you smell that?” Eddie asked suddenly, sniffing a little.

Richie did the same, expecting to smell something weird, either good or bad, but there was nothing new. “Smell what?”

A beat of silence followed.

“Never mind”, Eddie whispered.

There was something about her that scared him, and if he wasn’t completely mistaken, Eddie was scared of her too.

After having walked for a good ten minutes, Richie even managing to drag Eddie with him through parts of the forest (“Is this a good idea, Rich?” “Sure, it is!” “But I don’t think we’re allowed here all alone at night.” “Oh, don’t worry, Eds, I’ll protect you.”), they arrived at their destination.

Proudly presenting it with his arms spread wide, Richie watched as Eddie’s eyes opened wide.

“Oh.”

“It’s pretty, right?”

They were just barely on the outskirts of the town, on top of one of the hills not too far from the Barrens with a view over Derry. Just a small opening, trees behind them, and Richie had loved it ever since he’d found it on a small hiking trip with his parents that summer.

With the moon high on the sky, the two of them stepped close to the edge. Nothing about the view was especially impressive, it wasn’t even that much higher than the tallest buildings, but Richie loved it nonetheless. A complete overlook over their little town, like they were on the outside looking in, and it was a feeling of being in control.

“Yeah.”

Silence settled over them, both looking at the flickering lights from cars driving, small yellow squares of windows littering all the houses. Far away, distant sounds of children’s laughter echoed, crickets chirping around them from the trees. It was nice.

For the next moments, the two of them stood looking out over their town, whispering quietly. About dreams, about the fun night they’d had, about everything and nothing, silent voices in the dark.

“I had a dream we lived in a house together.”

Richie looked over at Eddie at that. “Oh?”

“It was a pretty small house, though.”

“I’ve always pictured us in a giant house, like, bigger than mine”, Richie muttered.

“Yes!” Eddie giggled to himself before gasping. "Or a castle! Doesn’t get bigger than a castle.”

“How about”, Richie stopped, tapping himself on the chin as he thought. “No, you’re right, a castle would be cool.”

“Uh huh”, Eddie sat down on the grass with a sigh. Then he looked over at Richie. “Just the two of us?”

“Of course”, Richie shrugged, sitting down too and leaning back on his elbows. It was obvious, wasn’t it?

“I’m gonna have to draw that tomorrow.”

That made Richie smile, and he pictured his dresser where one of Eddie’s drawings was taped to the top right corner. It was of the two of them, both with flower crowns on their heads and sitting in the moonlight. There was something about the drawing that had seemed odd; all the surroundings in weird colors and shapes, looking nothing like reality. Richie had studied it more times than he could count, but after looking at all the different shapes, he’d come to the conclusion that there was definitely a tree in there. “Cool.”

“You know how I have that little box with all my drawings I’ve made and small scribbles that I’ve written of my dreams?”

“Yeah?”

Eddie paused for a moment. “Sometimes I’ve thought about digging it down in my garden, to hide it away or something.”

Richie’s brows furrowed. “Why would you want to hide your dreams?”

Eddie sighed. “Maybe not…” he stopped. “I guess, not to hide them, but more like, uh…” he put a hand through his hair in thought. “More so that nobody can take them away from me.”

Richie sat up, hair falling into his face, and he wiped it away from his forehead.

“And not just away from me”, Eddie continued. “But away from _us_. You’re in so many of my dreams that you’re almost in more of my drawings than I am.”

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna take them away from you”, Richie tried, wary of Eddie’s frustration.

“My Ma might.”

Richie could only nod his head, not wanting to say anything to that. Only silence followed after, Eddie breathing heavily next to him.

“I’ll help you bury them, if you want”, Richie offered after a while, a small smile on his lips.

Eddie looked up then, gray eyes glittering. “Thanks.”

“When?”

“Oh, I…” Eddie shrugged. “Not for a while, but I’m thankful that you wanna help.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve dreamt about it”, Eddie continued. “Burying my dreams - that’s actually the reason why I thought about doing it. Anyways, in the dream a whole field of flowers grew out of the dirt where I buried the box, like dream flowers. I even got a drawing of it that I made.”

“Well, if that happens, I’m gonna pick all of your dream flowers. Pick your dreams one by one, make a flower crown out of it.” He grinned at Eddie.

Eddie gaped. “You will _not_.”

“Sure, I will!”

“No, those are _mine_!”

“I thought you said they were ours.”

“I’m…” Eddie stopped, looking over Richie’s features, Richie only raising his eyebrows in expectation with a soft smile on his face. “No, that’s not what I said.”

“But that’s what you meant.”

Silence again.

“Wasn’t it?” he asked, voice quieter than before, suddenly nervous.

Eddie only looked at him, eyes wide. “Yeah, I guess I did. I mean, almost all of my dreams involve you.”

“Mine too”, Richie mumbled.

They laughed quietly, barely breaths escaping their lips.

“I really do hope we’ll always have each other”, Eddie uttered.

“We will”, Richie pushed gently into Eddie with his shoulder. “And we’ll pick your dreams together.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! And they can be our little secret.” Richie leaned closer, smile on his lips. “And we’ll make all your dreams come true.”

Eddie smiled at him.

Then with a poke to Eddie’s shoulder, Richie stood up. He was in costume and everything; he had to grab the chance to go all out while he could.

“Hey, wanna play hide and seek?” he said in his Tod voice.

Eddie met his gaze, eyes glittering from all the lights in front of them and realization of what Richie was doing dawning on him. He sighed. “Richie.”

“Oh, come on, you know the line!” He leaned down to pull at Eddie’s bicep.

“I’m just not good with those impressions like you are.” Eddie shrugged, fingers knotted.

“I-?” Richie stopped, thrown off by the compliment. Sure, his parents told him how good he was getting all the time, but he’d never really gotten much response from his friends. Hearing Eddie saying that he thought he was actually _good_ , something sparked inside Richie’s heart. “Sure you are!”

“No, Richie, I’m not.”

“But”, Richie sighed. “But that don’t even matter, this is just for fun, you don’t gotta be any good at it.”

Eddie didn’t answer, only looked at him with eyebrows creased and eyes furrowed, fists rubbing together.

“Eddie”, Richie took a step closer. He tried for a gentle smile, wanting Eddie to feel safe with him. “It’s just me.”

Eddie breathed out, hand reaching up to take Richie’s. For a second they just held hands and smiled at each other, Richie’s fingers barely placed in the palm of Eddie’s hand. Richie’s heart was going wild in his chest. With a little squeeze, Eddie let go again. “Alright.”

A grin broke out on Richie’s face, his crooked teeth on full display. He’d lost all his front teeth a couple of years ago and the new ones had grown in crookedly just like his baby teeth had once been, the top ones sticking out slightly. He had a couple of gaps from losing others too, one falling out just a week ago. With all that going on, he didn’t feel confident smiling, but he felt safe with Eddie. Eddie would never make fun of him for his teeth, Richie knew.

“I’ll start then, okay?”

Eddie nodded his head.

“Okay.” Richie took a step back, preparing himself and putting on the character. “I’d bet you’d be good playing hide and seek. Wanna try it, Copper?”

“Can I use my nose?” Eddie said, trying his best to alter his voice. The two of them had watched the movie enough times to know those lines by now. Personally, it was one of Richie’s favorite scenes in the movie, Tod and Copper’s first meeting.

“Sure”, Richie giggled, still in character.

“Wait”, Eddie chimed in, as himself now. “But Copper peeks at hide and seek, I’d never do that.” There was something in his eyes as he looked at Richie, accusing almost.

“Huh”, Richie laughed nervously. “I’d forgotten that part. We can just skip it I guess.”

“Okay.” The look was still there.

“I’ll uh…” He pointed behind him. “I’ll pretend to go hide now.”

“Okay”, Eddie repeated again before turning around to start counting.

Richie didn’t have to go far, just stepping behind one of the trees. There was no need in hiding for real when they were just playing out the scene from the movie.

When Eddie had counted to 10, he turned around and started sniffing, imitating a dog. For a second he caught Richie’s eye, and he started walking towards the tree.

“I’m on the trail of something”, he said, voice darker now as he changed his voice. Walking in zigzag motions and head bopping from side to side with every sniff, he neared Richie. When he was right in front of him, he sniffed at Richie’s cheek, cold nose against Richie’s skin. “Why, it’s… It’s you!” He finished, laughing quietly as he fell out of character.

“You have to do the howl now”, Richie whispered, a small reminder.

“Oh!” Eddie remembered. He tilted his head back, eyes closed and howled a small “uh roo roo roo”.

Richie clapped his hands together. “That was great, Eddie!”

“It was?”

“Yeah!”

The smile that broke out on Eddie’s face was so wide that the brown paint on his cheeks cracked up. It didn’t matter though, the night was turning to a close and they’d have to get home soon and take it all off anyway.

“Thanks for wanting to play that with me”, Richie confided, voice soft.

“Oh, that’s okay”, Eddie waved his hand in dismissal. “I know you love doing all those impressions and stuff. It was fun.”

As the two looked over the town of Derry again, cold breeze ruffling the leaves in the trees, Richie felt a sense of being free that he’d never felt before. And when he looked over to see an equally massive smile on Eddie’s face, Richie knew he was feeling the same thing.

It was a full moon, and even though he was in the wrong costume, he couldn’t help but do exactly what Eddie had done only a couple minutes earlier; he howled.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, looking at Richie curiously. He was standing so close, the back of their hands almost touching.

“Howling at the moon”, Richie responded as if it was obvious. “Join me.”

Eddie barked out a short laugh and looked down on the dirty earth beneath their feet, kicking at a stone that skipped over the edge to tumble down the hill. “I don’t know. I’ve already done all that.”

“But you feel it too, right?” Richie turned completely towards him. “Like, standing up here,” he gestured towards the town, “we’re on top of the world.”

A smile was back on Eddie’s face as he nodded carefully, eyes wide as he looked back up at Richie.

“Like, it’s us”, he breathed in and breathed out, “against everyone else.”

“Yeah.”

“Like nothing can beat us, nothing can reach us up here. Like…” he sighed, trying to find his words. “Like we’re free.”

Eddie just stared at him.

“I think we’d have to be butterflies or something to feel more free than this.”

“I…” Eddie stopped, still looking at him, eyes flickering over every feature of Richie’s face. “You’re so great.”

“What?”

“It’s like…” Eddie shook his head as if in disbelief. “You make me feel like we’re flying high above the ground, up into the clouds and then even higher than that.”

“You make me feel like that too.”

“But even more than that,” Eddie was looking at him with so much intensity that Richie almost wanted to look away. “It’s like you can do the impossible, like you can make anything can happen.”

Richie raised his eyebrows.

Eddie did a sharp inhale. “You pulled a rabbit out of a hat, that’s pretty impossible. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could pull out an elephant too. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t really, but Richie nodded anyways.

Eddie looked away then, out over the town as silence settled over them again. “It’s just us here”, he whispered.

“Just us”, Richie repeated.

A hand slipped into his.

And they howled.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think!  
> And you can follow me on tumblr: moonlightrichie


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